Nonlinear elasticity under moderate to strong compression

Abstract: The strain-energy formulation of nonlinear elasticity can be extended to the case of significant compression by modulating suitable strain energy terms by a function of relative volume. For isotropic materials this can be accomplished by the product of representations of shear, in terms of the invariants of the Seth-Hill family of strain measures, and a function of volume. The incremental shear modulus under pressure is determined by this function, but nonlinear effects are retained for large strains. Suitable functional forms can be derived from existing equations of state for moderate to strong compression. For anisotropic materials, a similar development can be made directly with strain energy terms depending directly on the Seth-Hill strain tensors. Shear aspects can be emphasised by exploiting the equivoluminal components of the strain tensors. Such formulations may be helpful for materials under the conditions prevailing in the Earth's interior.