Asymptotic axially symmetric deformations for perfectly elastic neo-Hookean and Mooney materials

For axially symmetric deformations of the perfectly elastic neo-Hookean and Mooney materials, formal series solutions are determined in terms of expansions in appropriate powers of 1/R, where R is the cylindrical polar coordinate for the material coordinates. Remarkably, for both the neo-Hookean and Mooney materials, the first three terms of such expansions can be completely determined analytically in terms of elementary integrals. From the incompressibility condition and the equilibrium equations, the six unknown deformation functions, appearing in the first three terms can be reduced to five formal integrations involving in total seven arbitrary constants A, B, C, D, E, H and k ², and a further five integration constants, making a total of 12 integration constants for the deformation field. The solutions obtained for the neo-Hookean material are applied to the problem of the axial compression of a cylindrical rubber tube which has bonded metal end-plates. The solution so determined is approximate in two senses; namely as an approximate solution of the governing equations and for which the stress free and displacement boundary conditions are satisfied in an average manner only. The resulting load-deflection relation is shown graphically. The solution so determined, although approximate, attempts to solve a problem not previously tackled in the literature. © Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. 2007.