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The Ogden model is often considered as a standard model in the literature for application to the deformation of brain tissue. Here we show that, in some of those applications, the use of the Ogden model leads to non-convexity of the strain-energy function and mis-prediction of the correct concavity of the experimental stress-stretch curves over a range of the deformation domain. By contrast, we propose a family of models which provides a favourable fit to the considered datasets while remaining free from the highlighted shortcomings of the Ogden model. While, as we discuss, those shortcomings might be due to the artefacts of the testing protocols, the proposed family of models proves impervious to such artefacts.

We investigate how two finite-amplitude, transverse, plane body waves may be superposed to propagate in a deformed hyperelastic incompressible solid. We find that the equations of motion reduce to a well-determined system of partial differential equations, making the motion controllable for all solids. We find that in deformed Mooney-Rivlin materials, they may travel along any direction and be polarised along any transverse direction, an extension of a result by Boulanger and Hayes [Quart. J. Mech. Appl. Math. 45 (1992) 575]. Furthermore, their motion is governed by a linear system of partial differential equations, making the Mooney-Rivlin special in that respect. We select another model to show that for other materials, the equations are nonlinear. We use asymptotic equations to reveal the onset of nonlinearity for the waves, paying particular attention to how close the propagation direction is to the principal axes of pre-deformation.

Soft materials such as rubbers, silicones, gels and biological tissues have a nonlinear response to large deformations, a phenomenon which in principle can be captured by hyperelastic models. The suitability of a candidate hyperelastic strain energy function is then determined by comparing its predicted response to the data gleaned from tests and adjusting the material parameters to get a good fit, an exercise which can be deceptive because of nonlinearity. Here we propose to generalise the approach of Rivlin and Saunders [Phil Trans A 243 (1951) 251-288] who, instead of reporting the data as stress against stretch, manipulated these measures to create the 'Mooney plot', where the Mooney-Rivlin model is expected to produce a linear fit. We show that extending this idea to other models and modes of deformation (tension, shear, torsion, etc.) is advantageous, not only (a) for the fitting procedure, but also to (b) delineate trends in the deformation which are not obvious from the raw data (and may be interpreted in terms of micro-, meso-, and macro-structures) and (c) obtain a bounded condition number \k{appa} over the whole range of deformation; a robustness which is lacking in other plots and spaces.

We consider shear wave propagation in soft viscoelastic solids of rate type. Based on objective stress rates, the constitutive model accounts for finite strain, incompressibility, as well as stress- and strain-rate viscoelasticity. The theory generalises the standard linear solid model to three-dimensional volume-preserving motions of large amplitude in a physically-consistent way. The nonlinear equations governing shear motion take the form of a one-dimensional hyperbolic system with relaxation. For specific objective rates of Cauchy stress (lower- and upper-convected derivatives), we study the propagation of acceleration waves and shock waves. Then we show that both smooth and discontinuous travelling wave solutions can be obtained analytically. We observe that the amplitude and velocity of steady shocks are very sensitive to variations of the stress relaxation time. Furthermore, the existence of steady shocks is conditional. Extension of these results to the case of multiple relaxation mechanisms and of the Jaumann stress rate is attempted. The analysis of simple shearing motions is more involved in these cases.

We show that porcine brain matter can be modelled accurately as a very soft rubber-like material using the Mooney-Rivlin strain energy function, up to strains as high as 60\%. This result followed from simple shear experiments performed on small rectangular fresh samples ($2.5$ cm$^3$ and $1.1$ cm$^3$) at quasi-static strain rates. They revealed a linear shear stress--shear strain relationship ($R^2> 0.97 $), characteristic of Mooney-Rivlin materials at large strains. We found that porcine brain matter is about 30 times less resistant to shear forces than a silicone gel. We also verified experimentally that brain matter exhibits the positive Poynting effect of nonlinear elasticity, and numerically that the stress and strain fields remain mostly homogeneous throughout the thickness of the samples in simple shear.

We find the strain energy function for isotropic incompressible solids exhibiting a linear relationship between shear stress and amount of shear, and between torque and amount of twist, when subject to large simple shear or torsion deformations. It is inclusive of the well-known neo-Hookean and the Mooney-Rivlin models, but also can accommodate other terms, as certain arbitrary functions of the principal strain invariants. Effectively, the extra terms can be used to account for several non-linear effects observed experimentally but not captured by the neo-Hookean and Mooney-Rivlin models, such as strain stiffening effects due to limiting chain extensibility.

The modelling of off-axis simple tension experiments on transversely isotropic nonlinearly elastic materials is considered. A testing protocol is proposed where normal force is applied to one edge of a rectangular specimen with the opposite edge allowed to move laterally but constrained so that no vertical displacement is allowed. Numerical simulations suggest that this deformation is likely to remain substantially homogeneous throughout the specimen for moderate deformations. It is therefore further proposed that such tests can be modelled adequately as a homogenous deformation consisting of a triaxial stretch accompanied by a simple shear. Thus the proposed test should be a viable alternative to the standard biaxial tests currently used as material characterisation tests for transversely isotropic materials in general and, in particular, for soft, biological tissue. A consequence of the analysis is a kinematical universal relation for off-axis testing that results when the strain-energy function is assumed to be a function of only one isotropic and one anisotropic invariant, as is typically the case. The universal relation provides a simple test of this assumption, which is usually made for mathematical convenience. Numerical simulations also suggest that this universal relation is unlikely to agree with experimental data and therefore that at least three invariants are necessary to fully capture the mechanical response of transversely isotropic materials.

We study elastic shear waves of small but finite amplitude, composed of an anti-plane shear motion and a general in-plane motion. We use a multiple scales expansion to derive an asymptotic system of coupled nonlinear equations describing their propagation in all isotropic incompressible non-linear elastic solids, generalizing the scalar Zabolotskaya equation of compressible nonlinear elasticity. We show that for a general isotropic incompressible solid, the coupling between anti-plane and in-plane motions cannot be undone and thus conclude that linear polarization is impossible for general nonlinear two-dimensional shear waves. We then use the equations to study the evolution of a nonlinear Gaussian beam in a soft solid: we show that a pure (linearly polarised) shear beam source generates only odd harmonics, but that introducing a slight in-plane noise in the source signal leads to a second harmonic, of the same magnitude as the fifth harmonic, a phenomenon recently observed experimentally. Finally, we present examples of some special shear motions with linear polarisation.

In mean-field theory, the non-local state of fluid molecules can be taken into account using a statistical method. The molecular model combined with a density expansion in Taylor series of the fourth order yields an internal energy value relevant to the fourth-gradient model, and the equation of isother-mal motions takes then density's spatial derivatives into account for waves travelling in both liquid and vapour phases. At equilibrium, the equation of the density profile across interfaces is more precise than the Cahn and Hilliard equation, and near the fluid's critical-point, the density profile verifies an Extended Fisher-Kolmogorov equation, allowing kinks, which converges towards the Cahn-Hillard equation when approaching the critical point. Nonetheless, we also get pulse waves oscillating and generating critical opalescence., Comment: Some travelling waves of density near a fluid critical-point

A great variety of models can describe the non-linear response of rubber to uni-axial tension. Yet an in-depth understanding of the successive stages of large extension is still lacking. We show that the response can be broken down in three steps, which we delineate by relying on a simple formatting of the data, the so-called Mooney transform. First, the small-to-moderate regime, where the polymeric chains unfold easily and the Mooney plot is almost linear. Second, the strain-hardening regime, where blobs of bundled chains unfold to stiffen the response in correspondence to the "upturn" of the Mooney plot. Third, the limiting-chain regime, with a sharp stiffening occurring as the chains extend towards their limit. We provide strain-energy functions with terms accounting for each stage, that (i) give an accurate local and then global fitting of the data; (ii) are consistent with weak non-linear elasticity theory; and (iii) can be interpreted in the framework of statistical mechanics. We apply our method to Treloar's classical experimental data and also to some more recent data. Our method not only provides models that describe the experimental data with a very low quantitative relative error, but also shows that the theory of non-linear elasticity is much more robust that seemed at first sight.