A constitutive framework for modelling thin incompressible viscoelastic materials under plane stress in the finite strain regime

Rubbers and soft biological tissues may undergo large deformations and are also viscoelastic. The formulation of constitutive models for these materials poses special challenges. In several applications, especially in biomechanics, these materials are also relatively thin, implying that in-plane stresses dominate and that plane stress may therefore be assumed. In the present paper, a constitutive model for viscoelastic materials in the finite strain regime and under the assumption of plane stress is proposed. It is assumed that the relaxation behaviour in the direction of plane stress can be treated separately, which makes it possible to formulate evolution laws for the plastic strains on explicit form at the same time as incompressibility is fulfilled. Experimental results from biomechanics (dynamic inflation of dog aorta) and rubber mechanics (biaxial stretching of rubber sheets) were used to assess the proposed model. The assessment clearly indicates that the model is fully able to predict the experimental outcome for these types of material.