Logarithmic strain measure in finite element modelling of anisotropic hyperelastic materials

Abstract

A new finite element to analyze problems of anisotropic hyperelasticity is presented. The constitutive equations are derived by means of the energy method, which leads to the stress measure conjugate to the logarithmic strain. Equilibrium equation are integrated in the current configuration. Multiplicative - instead of additive - decomposition of the time derivative of a strain tensor function is applied as a crucial step that makes possible the formulation for anisotropic hyperelastic materials. Unlike previous known anisotropic large deformation models, the one here presented assures the energy conservation while using the anisotropic elastic constants and the logarithmic strain measure. It is underlined that for the first time a model including all these features is presented. Some numerical examples are shown to illustrate the results obtained with this model and to compare them with other known anisotropic models.