Abstract: The problem of spherical cavitated bifurcation was examined for a class of incompressible generalized neo-Hookean materials, in which the materials may be viewed as the homogeneous incompressible isotropic neo_Hookean material with radial perturbations. The condition of void nucleation for this problem was obtained. In contrast to the situation for a homogeneous isotropic neo-Hookean sphere, it is shown that not only there exists a secondary turning bifurcation point on the cavitated bifurcation solution which bifurcates locally to the left from trivial solution, and also the critical load is smaller than that for the material with no perturbations, as the parameters belong to some regions. It is proved that the cavitated bifurcation equation is equivalent to a class of normal forms with single-sided constraints near the critical point by using singularity theory. The stability of solutions and the actual stable equilibrium state were discussed respectively by using the minimal potential energy principle.

Key words: incompressible generalized neo-Hookean material, cavitated bifurcation, normal form, stability and catastrophe