Constitutive model for large viscoelastic deformations of elastomeric materials (Q751896)

A constitutive model for large viscoelastic deformations of elastomeric materials is proposed. An evolving internal stress variable is introduced as the macroscopic manifestation of the molecular chain network resistance to deform affine instantaneously. The concept of an effectively unstressed configuration is used to determine the relation between the large elastic deformations and the effective stress, the latter defined as the difference between the total and the internal stress. The inelastic response is obtained by the corotational rate equation of evolution for the internal stress, with respect to a properly defined constitutive spin. To this extent the concept of the internal spin is introduced. The theory is illustrated by two examples under uniaxial and simple shear loading.