Permanent set and stress-softening constitutive equation applied to rubber-like materials and soft tissues

Many rubber-like materials present a phenomenon known as Mullins effect. It is characterized by a difference of behavior between the first and second loadings and by a permanent set after a first loading. Moreover, this phenomenon induces anisotropy in an initially isotropic material. A new constitutive equation is proposed in this paper. It relies on the decomposition of the macromolecular network into two parts: chains related together and chains related to fillers. The first part is modeled by a simple hyperelastic constitutive equation, whereas the second one is described by an evolution function introduced in the hyperelastic strain energy. It contributes to describe both the anisotropic stress softening and the permanent set. The model is finally extended to soft tissues’ mechanical behavior that present also stress softening but with an initially anisotropic behavior. The two models are successfully fitted and compared to experimental data.