On the Direct and Reverse Multiplicative Decompositions of Deformation Gradient in Nonlinear Anisotropic Anelasticity

In this paper we discuss nonlinear anisotropic anelasticity formulated based on the two multiplicative decompositions F=FeFa and F=FaFe. Using the Bilby-Kroner-Lee decomposition F=FeFa one can define a Riemannian material manifold (the natural configuration of an anelastic body) whose metric explicitly depends on the anelastic deformation Fa. We call this the global material intermediate configuration. Deformation is a map from this Riemannian manifold to the flat ambient space. Using the reverse decomposition F=FaFe, the reference configuration is a (flat) submanifold of the Euclidean ambient space, while the global intermediate configuration is a Riemannian manifold whose metric explicitly depends on the elastic deformation Fe. We call this the global spatial intermediate configuration. We show that the direct F=FeFa and reverse F=FaFe decompositions correspond to the same anelastic motion if and only if Fe and Fe are equal up to local isometries of the reference configuration. We discuss the constitutive equations of anisotropic anelastic solids in terms of both intermediate configurations. It is shown that the two descriptions of anelasticity are equivalent in the sense that the Cauchy stresses calculated using them are identical. We note that, unlike isotropic solids, for an anisotropic solid the material metric is not sufficient for describing the constitutive behavior of the solid; the energy function explicitly depends on Fa (or Fa) through the structural tensors.