Sudden tensile loading of a rubberlike bar

Abstract

In uniaxial tension, the stress–strain curve for rubber changes curvature from concave to convex as the strain increases. For sudden tensile loading of a bar, a one-dimensional model that reflects this behavior leads to an under-determined problem reminiscent of that arising in materials capable of undergoing phase transitions. In the latter setting, adding the kinetic relation underlying the phase change to the conventional statement of the problem removes the indeterminacy; the same is true when such a relation is used in a formal way in the problem for rubber. This presents a physical question: What is the evolutionary process at the microscale whose kinetics are needed in the dynamics of rubber?

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