The minimum free energy for a class of compressible viscoelastic fluids

Abstract

A general expression is derived for the isothermal minimum free energy of a compressible viscoelastic fluid with linear dependence on the history of strain and nonlinear dependence on the density. This involves the solution of a Wiener--Hopf integral equation, for which an existence and uniqueness theorem is proved. The factorization of a particular material tensor, which is fundamental to the methodology, can be carried out explicitly in this case.