Cavitation criterion for power-law strain energy ($0<\alpha <3/2$)

For strain energy density $W=\mu [({\lambda }_r^2+{\lambda }_{\theta }^2+{\lambda }_{\varphi }^2{)}^{\alpha }-3^{\alpha }]/2$ with $\mu >0$ and $\alpha >0$, the critical loading for elastic cavitation is finite exactly in the displayed range. To prove this, put $S={\lambda }^{-4}+2{\lambda }^2$ in the reduced strain energy density. The critical-pressure integrand is $2\mu \alpha S^{\alpha -1}({\lambda }^{-2}+{\lambda }^{-5})$. It is finite at $\lambda =1$ and asymptotic to $\mu \alpha 2^{\alpha }{\lambda }^{2\alpha -4}$ at infinity. The comparison test for the resulting improper integral gives $2\alpha -4<-1$.