3-DIMENSIONAL INCOMPRESSIBLE VISCOELASTICITY IN LARGE STRAINS - FORMULATION AND NUMERICAL APPROXIMATION

This paper considers viscoelastic incompressible solids in large defor mations. A three-dimensional thermodynamical model is first proposed. It leads to a nonlinear variational problem which is approximated in s pace by mixed finite elements and in time by a first order implicit sc heme. This approximation is analyzed on the corresponding linearized p roblem. Finally, an elimination strategy is described which reduces ea ch step of the discrete problem to the solution of a standard hyperela stic problem to be solved by Newton's method.