An extension of Key's principle to nonlinear elasticity

A variational principle for finite isothermal deformations of anisotropic compressible and nearly incompressible hyperelastic materials is presented. It is equivalent to the nonlinear elastic field (Lagrangian) equations expressed in terms of the displacement field and a scalar function associated with the hydrostatic mean stress. The formulation for incompressible materials is recovered from the compressible one simply as a limit. The principle is particularly useful in the development of finite element analysis of nearly incompressible and of incompressible materials and is general in the sense that it uses a general form of constitutive equation. It can be considered as an extension of Key's principle to nonlinear elasticity. Various numerical implementations are used to illustrate the efficiency of the proposed formulation and to show the convergence behaviour for different types of elements. These numerical tests suggest that the formulation gives results which change smoothly as the material varies from compressible to incompressible.