Mullins Effect for a Cylinder Subjected to Combined Extension and Torsion

We study the Mullins effect for a circular cylinder of incompressible, isotropic material under loading cycles of combined extension and torsion. The analysis is based on the constitutive model recently proposed in De Tommasi et al. (J. Rheol. 50: 495–512, 2006). This model assumes that the mechanical response at eachmaterial point results as a homogenized effect of amixture of differentmaterials with variable activation and breaking thresholds. We show the feasibility of this approach to treat complex, inhomogeneous deformations. In particular, we obtain for the generic loading path the analytical expressions of the stress field, of the axial force, and of the twisting moment. The proposed model exhibits the Mullins stress softening effect in the case of simple extension, simple torsion, and combined extension and torsion. We analyze in detail the path dependent behavior and the preconditioning effects.