Rate type constitutive equations for fiber reinforced nonlinearly vicoelastic solids using spectral invariants

In this paper we are interested in developing constitutive equations for fiber-reinforced nonlinearly viscoelastic solids. It has been shown that constitutive equations for such bodies can be expressed in terms of a complete minimal set of 18 classical invariants associated with deformation and fiber orientation. In this paper, we give an alternative formulation using a set of spectral invariants. It is shown via the use of spectral invariants that only 11 of the 18 classical invariants are independent. We analyze the spectral invariants for two illustrative deformation gradients: (i) simple tension, and (ii) simple shear. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.