On an elastic strain-limiting special Cosserat rod model

Motivated by recent strain-limiting models for solids and biological fibers, we introduce the first intrinsic set of nonlinear constitutive relations, between the geometrically exact strains and the components of the contact force and contact couple, describing a uniform, hyperelastic, strain-limiting special Cosserat rod. After discussing some attractive features of the constitutive relations (orientation preservation, transverse symmetry and monotonicity), we exhibit several explicit equilibrium states under either an isolated end thrust or an isolated end couple. In particular, certain equilibrium states exhibit Poynting like effects, and we show that under mild assumptions on the material parameters, the model predicts an explicit tensile shearing bifurcation: a straight rod under a large enough tensile end thrust parallel to its center line can shear.