Nonlinear Viscoelasticity Of Almost Elastic Materials

A theory is developed for nonlinear viscoelastic materials whose behavior differs only slightly from that of a nonlinear elastic material. Solutions of problems are considered as perturbations about the solution of the corresponding problem for an elastic material, and the perturbation equations are relatively simple to solve. It is shown that, in a wide class of practically important problems, the experimental task of determining parameters is feasible, and the problem of inter-relating different types of material parameters is tractable. (Author).