Cavitation in finite elasticity with surface energy effects

Cavity formation in incompressible as well as compressible isotropic hyperelastic materials under spherically symmetric loading is examined by accounting for the effect of surface energy. Equilibrium solutions describing cavity formation in an initially intact sphere are obtained explicitly for incompressible as well as slightly compressible neo-Hookean solids. The cavitating response is shown to depend on the asymptotic value of surface energy at unbounded cavity surface stretch. The energetically favorable equilibrium is identified for an incompressible neo-Hookean sphere in the case of prescribed dead-load traction, and for a slightly compressible neo-Hookean sphere in the case of prescribed surface displacement as well as prescribed dead-load traction. In the presence of surface energy effects, it becomes possible that the energetically favorable equilibrium jumps from an intact state to a cavitated state with a finite cavity radius, as the prescribed loading parameter passes a critical level. Such discontinuous cavitation characteristics are found to be highly dependent on the relative magnitude of the surface energy to the bulk strain energy.