This paper is concerned with determining material parameters in incompressible isotropic elastic strain-energy functions on the basis of a non-linear least squares optimization method by fitting data from the classical experiments of Treloar and Jones and Treloar on natural rubber. We consider three separate forms of strain-energy function, based respectively on use of the principal stretches, the usual principal invariants of the Cauchy-Green deformation tensor and a certain set of 'orthogonal' invariants of the logarithmic strain tensor. We highlight, in particular, (a) the relative errors generated in the fitting process and (b) the occurrence of multiple sets of optimal material parameters for the same data sets. This multiplicity can lead to very different numerical solutions for a given boundary-value problem, and this is illustrated for a simple example.

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 socalled Mooney transform. First, the small-to-moderate regime, where the polymeric chains unfold easily and the Mooney plot is almost linear. Second, the strainhardening 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.

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In this paper, we investigate from a theoretical point of view the 2D reaction-diffusion system for electrodeposition coupling morphology and surface chemistry, presented and experimentally validated in Bozzini et al. (2013 J. Solid State Electr. 17, 467-479). We analyse the mechanisms responsible for spatio-temporal organization. As a first step, spatially uniform dynamics is discussed and the occurrence of a supercritical Hopf bifurcation for the local kinetics is proved. In the spatial case, initiation of morphological patterns induced by diffusion is shown to occur in a suitable region of the parameter space. The intriguing interplay between Hopf and Turing instability is also considered, by investigating the spatio-temporal behaviour of the system in the neighbourhood of the codimensiontwo Turing-Hopf bifurcation point. An ADI (Alternating Direction Implicit) scheme based on high-order finite differences in space is applied to obtain numerical approximations of Turing patterns at the steady state and for the simulation of the oscillating Turing-Hopf dynamics.