This paper presents a new uniaxial material model for rate-sensitive analysis addressing both the transient and steady-state responses. The new model adopts visco-plastic theory for the rate-sensitive response, and employs a three-parameter representation of the overstress as a function of the strain-rate. The third parameter is introduced in the new model to control its transient response characteristics, and to provide flexibility in fitting test data on the variation of overstress with strain-rate. Since the governing visco-plastic differential equation cannot be integrated analytically due to its inherent nonlinearity, a new single-step numerical integration procedure is proposed, which leads to high levels of accuracy almost independent of the size of the integration time-step. The new model is implemented within the nonlinear analysis program ADAPTIC, which is used to provide several verification examples and comparison with other experimental and numerical results. The companion paper extends the three-parameter model to trilinear static stress-strain relationships for steel and concrete, and presents application examples of the proposed models.