This text addresses modern problems in the mechanics of viscoelastic solids and structural membranes. The theory and methods described in this book have a wide range of applications, including civil engineering, manufacturing, chemistry, biology and materials science. The text emphasizes: new models for the description of viscoelastic behaviour for both finite and infinitesimal strains; and analysis of technological processes where material viscosity plays an important role.

This text provides a systematic and self-consistent introduction to the non nlinear continuum mechanics of solids, from the main axioms to aspects of the theory. The objective is to expose the most intriguing aspects of elasticity and viscoelasticity with finite strains in such a way as to ensure mathematical correctness, on the one hand, and to demonstrate a wide spectrum of physical phenomena typical only of nonlinear mechanics on the other. One aspect of the book is that it contains a number of examples illustrating surprising behaviour in materials with finite strains, as well as...