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In this paper, we propose a spectral approach to model finite deformations of fibre-reinforced elastic solids with fibre bending stiffness. The constructed constitutive equations depend on spectral invariants, where each one has a clear physical meaning and hence are attractive for use in experiment and analysis. With the use of spectral invariants, we easily obtain the number of independent invariants and the number of invariants in the corresponding minimal integrity or irreducible basis. The proposed finite strain energy prototypes are consistent with their infinitesimal strain energy function counterparts. Some results for pure bending of a slab, and the extension and torsion of solid cylinder, that could be useful for experiments and numerical validations, are given. The proposed model could be used to obtain numerical results via modification of some computational methods found in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Classical invariants, despite most of them having unclear physical interpretation and not having experimental advantages, have been extensively used in modeling nonlinear magneto-elastic materials. In this paper, a new set of spectral invariants, which have some advantages over classical invariants, is proposed to model the behavior of transversely isotropic nonlinear magneto-elastic bodies. The novel spectral invariant formulation, which is shown to be more general, is used to analytically solve some simple magneto-mechanical boundary value problems. With the aid of the proposed spectral invariants it is possible to study, in a much simpler manner, the effect of different types of deformations on the response of the magneto-elastic material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The motivation for this work was the absence of closed form solutions that can reasonably describe the axial deformation behaviour of stress-softening polymer bearings. In this paper, new closed form solutions that exhibit Mullins phenomenon are developed. We show that the apparent Young modulus depends on the shape factor and the minimal infinitesimal strain. We furthermore found that, in a nonlinear deformation, the shape factor plays an important role in stress softening. The solutions are design friendly and are consistent with expected results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]