Viscoplastic simple shear at finite strains

The equations governing the simple shear deformation of an incompressible inelastic material undergoing finite strain are derived in this paper. The constitutive assumptions are kept in their most general form to allow the incorporation of widely used viscoplastic or viscoelastic models from the literature. It is shown that, while for a hyperelastic material the simple shear problem is completely determined by a single parameter, the amount of shear, in the viscoplastic case, the elastic deformation is the superposition of a triaxial stretch and a simple shear, whose determination requires the solution of three coupled nonlinear evolution equations. We evaluate such a solution for different material models and compare it with three-dimensional finite element simulations to assess its accuracy. We further assess the performance of these models using experimental data from filled rubber, focusing on their ability to capture the observed behaviour, such as the well-known Payne effect. Additionally, we extend our simple shear solution to address torsion and the extension of thin-walled cylinders. These derivations and analyses offer valuable insights for experimentalists engaged in the mechanical characterization of soft materials.