Instability of incompressible cylinder rubber tubes under radial electric fields.

The possibility of instability of cylindrical tubes of elastomers is analyzed taking into account Mooney-Rivlin (M. Mooney, J. Appl. Phys. 11, 582 (1940)) and Ogden (R.W. Ogden, Proc. R. Soc. London, Ser. A 326, 565 (1972)) models. In some aspects this paper is the elasto-electric counterpart of a previous paper by Bustamante, Dorfmann and Ogden (R. Bustamante, A. Dorfmann, R.W. Ogden, J. Engn. Math. 59, 139 (2007)). However in the present case the appearance of instability is checked. The results indicate that models more complex than the Mooney-Rivlin model are necessary to predict instability zones showing minimum critical points.