Nonlinear Elasticity

Dr Maaz Akhtar
Associate Professor,
Mechanical Engineering Department, NED UET
 Nonlinear Stress-Strain Behavior
• Stress-strain behavior for metals gives linear relationship till yield
point, later exhibits nonlinear plastic deformation region.
• Many materials when loaded gives complete nonlinear stress-strain
behavior.
• Polymers such as rubbers, Elastomers etc are generally possessing
nonlinear stress-strain behavior (Figure-1).
σ

ε
Figure-1: Stress-strain curve for rubber-like material
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 Young’s Modulus for Nonlinear Elastic Materials
• Young’s modulus for materials exhibits nonlinear stress strain
behavior can be determined by dividing complete curve into small
divisions such that each portion will be a straight line.

• Addition of all the values and dividing by number of divisions will

give the value of Young’s modulus.
• Another approach which can be use to determine Young’s modulus
is based on the theory given by Gent (1996).
• Gent determine the elastic modulus by considering only 10% data of
total stress-strain curve where the curve is almost linear.
• He compared elastic modulus for many rubbers found that by both
techniques the values are very near. Hence, it is recommended to use
only 10% data of stress-strain curve to determine Young’s modulus.

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 Material Models for Rubberlike Materials
• Elastomer can be treated as a hyperelastic material, commonly
modeled as incompressible, homogeneous, isotropic and nonlinear
elastic solid.
• Due to long and flexible structure elastomer has the ability to stretch
several times its initial length.
• Elastomers at small strains (upto 10%) have linear stress strain
relation and behave like other elastic materials (Gent, 1996).
• In case of applications where large deformations exist, theory of
large elastic deformation should be considered.
• Several theories for large elastic deformation have been developed
for hyperelastic materials based on strain energy density functions.
• Important inputs for analyzing these materials are the selection of
strain energy potential and determination of material coefficients.
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 Material Models for Rubberlike Materials
• Different mathematical models have been suggested for the
prediction of stress-strain behavior in elastomeric materials.
• Rubber elasticity theory explains the mechanical properties of a
rubber in terms of its molecular constitution.
• First statistical mechanics approach to describe the force on a
deforming elastomer network assumed Gaussian statistics, which
assumes that a chain never approaches its fully extended length.
• Researchers also suggested material models based on non-Gaussian
statistics. The distinctive feature of non-Gaussian approach is that it
presumes that a chain can attain its fully extended length.
• These are physical models based on an explanation of a molecular
chain network, phenomenological invariant-based and stretch-based
continuum mechanics approach.
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 Material Models for Rubberlike Materials
• A hyperelastic material model is a type of constitutive relation for
rubberlike material in which the stress-strain relationship is
developed from a function. Figure below gives a classification of
different types of hyperelastic material models.

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 Structural Behavior for Rubberlike Materials
• Rubbers are comprises of chains and natural rubbers generally have
no crosslinks. By adding Sulphur in natural rubber, crosslinks are
formed and rubber is termed as vulcanized rubber.
• Vulcanized rubbers generally possesses higher strength as compared
to natural rubber because more energy is required to break cross
links.
• Rubbers generally have two types of entanglements Physical and
chemical.

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 Structural Behavior for Rubberlike Materials
• On stretching the chains become straight and slide on each other.
More load will resulted in breaking of chemical entanglement
(crosslinks).

Which is more stronger, Natural or Vulcanized rubber?

Natural rubber has no crosslinks and have only physical entanglement.
On the other hand vulcanized rubber has crosslinks. Due to the
presence of crosslinks, vulcanized rubber requires more load to
fracture as compared to natural rubber. Under the load, vulcanized
rubber first stretches and than the crosslinks resist the deformation.
Vulcanized rubber does not fail unless the crosslinks are broken.
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 Chain Density
• For any rubber-like material, network strands are formed both by
cross-linking and physical entanglement.

• As the degree of cross-linking increases, the cross-link chain density

increases, making the elastomer more rigid, thus giving higher
values of stiffness and shear modulus G (Gent, 2012).
• For elastomers subjected to small strains, shear modulus is directly
related to the number of cross-link chains per unit volume 𝑁𝑐
(Treloar, 1975):

𝐺 = 𝑁𝑐 𝑘𝑇 (1)
• Where 𝑘 is the Boltzmann's constant, and 𝑇 is the temperature in
Kelvins.

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 Number Average Chain Molecular Weight
• Length of the network chains decreases due to an increase in the
degree of cross-linking.
• In any polymer, chain density is closely related to the average
molecular weight, and this property can also be used to explain the
mechanics of deformation of rubber-like materials.

• Multiplying and dividing Eq. (1) by Avogadro’s number 𝑁𝐴 , and

recalling that 𝑅 = 𝑁𝐴 𝑘, we can obtain

𝐺 = 𝑁𝑐 𝑅𝑇/𝑁𝐴 (2)

• If 𝑛 is the number of chains, Avogadro’s number can also be written

as:
𝑁𝐴 = 𝑛𝑀𝑐 /𝑚 (3)

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 Number Average Chain Molecular Weight

Combining definition of chain density (𝑁𝑐 = 𝑛 / 𝑉) with Eq. (1) yields

𝑁𝐴 = 𝑛𝑀𝑐 /𝑚 (3)

𝑁𝑐 /𝑁𝐴 = 𝜌/𝑀𝑐 (4)

• Comparing this result with Eq. (2), we can get the expression for
the number average chain molecular weight :

𝐺 = 𝑁𝑐 𝑅𝑇/𝑁𝐴 (2)

𝑀𝑐 = 𝜌𝑅𝑇/𝐺 (5)

• Once the values of shear modulus 𝐺 is determined, these structural

properties of the elastomer (𝑁𝑐 and 𝑀𝐶 ) can be easily evaluated
using Eqs. (1) and (5).
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Problem-1
Rubber has average chain density of 2.73 x 1027 m2 kg s-2, density of
1.2x103 kg/m3 and at 310K temperature. Determine Shear modulus
and Molecular weight. Given that k=1.38×10-23 m2 kg s-2 K-1 and
R=8.314 kg⋅m2·K−1⋅mol−1s−2
Solution
Since 𝐺 = 𝑁𝑐 𝑘𝑇
⟹ 𝐺 = 2.73 x 1027 * 1.38×10-23 * 310
𝐺 = 11.67 MPa Answer

Also 𝑀𝑐 = 𝜌𝑅𝑇/𝐺
1.2×103 ×8.314×310
⟹ 𝑀𝑐 =
11.67×106

⟹ 𝑀𝑐 = 0.2648 kg/mol Answer

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 Uniaxial Tension Tests for Incompressible Hyperelastic
Materials
• Rubber like material (hyperelastic material) is under uniaxial tensile
load as shown in Figure below:

• Load will elongate the body in axial direction while other two
lateral directions it exhibits reduction in width and height.
• Material is assumed to be incompressible, hence volume remain
conserved.
i.e. 𝑉𝑓 = 𝑉𝑜
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Uniaxial Tension Tests for Incompressible Hyperelastic
Materials
i.e. 𝑡𝑓 𝑊𝑓 𝑙𝑓 = 𝑡𝑜 𝑊𝑜 𝑙𝑜

∆𝑙 𝑙𝑓 −𝑙𝑜
𝑆𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝜀= ⇒𝜀=
𝑙𝑜 𝑙𝑜

𝑙𝑓
⇒ 𝜀= −1 ⇒𝜀+1=𝜆
𝑙𝑜
𝑙𝑓 𝑊𝑓 𝑡𝑓
⇒ =1
𝑙𝑜 𝑊𝑜 𝑡𝑜

⇒ 𝜆1 𝜆2 𝜆3 = 1

⇒ 𝜆2 = 𝜆3

Let 𝜆1 = 𝜆

1
⇒ 𝜆2 = 𝜆3 =
𝜆

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 Stress Determination for Hyperelastic Materials
• Holzapfel (2000) gives the relationship for determining stress for
hyperelastic material in terms of strain energy function (W) as
follows:
1 𝜕𝑊 1 𝜕𝑊
𝜎=2 𝜆2 − +
𝜆 𝜕𝐼1 𝜆 𝜕𝐼2

Neo-Hookean material model

For Neo-Hookean material model, strain energy function is given by:
G
W = 𝐼1 − 3
2
Hence, stress function can be determined by substituting ‘W’ in ‘σ’
equation, 1
𝜎 = 𝐺 𝜆2 −
𝜆
Above expression shows that shear modulus and stretch value is
required to determine the stress generated due to uniaxial tensile load.
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 Stress Determination for Hyperelastic Materials
Mooney-Rivlin material model
For Money-Rivlin material model, strain energy function is given by:
W𝑀𝑜𝑜𝑛𝑒𝑦−𝑅𝑖𝑣𝑙𝑖𝑛 = C1 𝐼1 − 3 + C2 𝐼2 − 3
Hence, stress function can be determined by substituting ‘W’ in ‘σ’
equation,
2
1 1
𝜎=2 𝜆 − C1 + C2
𝜆 λ
Above expression shows that two constants and stretch value is
required to determine the stress generated due to uniaxial tensile load.

Note: Constants (C1 & C2 ) are determine using shear modulus. For
solving numerical values of these constants will be given.

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Problem-2
Uniaxial tensile test is conducted on incompressible Hyperelastic
material. Rubber has average chain density value of 1.23 x 1027 m2 kg s-2 ,
and is at room temperature (300K). If stretch in axial diection is found to
be 2, determine the amount of stress produced using Neo-Hookean
material model. Take k=1.38 × 10-23 m2 kg s-2 K-1
Solution
Since 𝐺 = 𝑁𝑐 𝑘𝑇
⟹ 𝐺 = 1.23 x 1027 * 1.38×10-23 * 300
⟹ 𝐺 = 5 MPa
G
Since for Neo-Hookean: W = 𝐼1 − 3
2
1 𝜕𝑊 1 𝜕𝑊
Also, Holzapfel gives : 𝜎=2 𝜆2 − +
𝜆 𝜕𝐼1 𝜆 𝜕𝐼2

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Putting Neo-Hookean strain energy function (W) in Holzapfel formula
gives:
2
1
𝜎=𝐺 𝜆 −
𝜆
Replacing the given data in above formula, we get:
1
𝜎 =5× 106 22 −
2
𝜎 = 17.5 𝑀𝑃𝑎 Answer
Note: If lateral stretch is given than we need to derive the relationship
1
for lateral stretch in terms of axial stretch i.e. 𝜆2 = 𝜆3 =
𝜆
For example if lateral stretch of 1.5 is given than axial stress is:
1 1
𝜆3 = ⟹ 1.5 = ⟹ 𝜆 = 0.444
𝜆 𝜆
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 TOPIC
COMPLETED

COURSE
COMPLETED
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