Composite materials reinforced with particles or fibers are widely used in industrial applications due to their good mechanical, thermal, and electrical properties. Consequently, for the scientific community as well as the industry, an important challenge is to understand the relationship between the microstruture and the macroscopic response in order to design composite materials with optimised properties. In this thesis, we study a class of inclusion-reinforced multi-phase composites. Our main objective is to develop a micromechanical model and the corresponding numerical algorithms which enable the simulation of the rate-independent mechanical response. The proposed model is based on an incremental Hill-type formulation and uses the two-step Mori-Tanaka/Voigt mean-field homogenisation schemes. The crucial issues of the choice of reference comparison materials and Eshelby's tensor computation are examined In parallel, an experimental study consisting in four-point bending tests performed on plain concrete and steel fiber-reinforced concrete (SFRC) specimens, is carried out with the aim of achieving an appropriate modelling of SFRC, and collecting data for the validation of our model predictions. The accuracy and the efficiency of the proposed approach are evaluated through numerical simulations. Several discriminating tests of concrete, metal, and polymer matrix composites are carried out. A two-scale approach is developed in order to simulate, within reasonable CPU time and memory usage, the response of realistic structures under complex loadings. In many cases our estimates are validated against finite element computations and experimental results.

The hot-workability of Titanium (Ti) alloys is of current interest to the aerospace industry due to its widespread application in the design of strong and light-weight aircraft structural components and engine parts. Motivated by the need for accurate simulation of large scale plastic deformation in metals that exhibit macroscopic plastic anisotropy, such as Ti, a constitutive model is developed for anisotropic materials undergoing plastic deformation coupled with ductile damage in the form of internal cavitation. The model is developed from a rigorous micromechanical basis, following well-known previous works in the field. The model incorporates the porosity and void aspect ratio as internal damage variables, and seeks to provide a more accurate prediction of damage growth compared to previous existing models. A closed form expression for the macroscopic yield locus is derived using a Hill-Mandel homogenization and limit analysis of a porous representative volume element. Analytical expressions are also developed for the evolution of the internal variables, porosity and void shape. The developed yield criterion is validated by comparison to numerically determined yield loci for specific anisotropic materials, using a numerical limit analysis technique developed herein. The evolution laws for the internal variables are validated by comparison with direct finite element simulations of porous unit cells. Comparison with previously published results in the literature indicates that the new model yields better agreement with the numerically determined yield loci for a wide range of loading paths. Use of the new model in continuum finite element simulations of ductile fracture may be expected to lead to improved predictions for damage evolution and fracture modes in plastically anisotropic materials.

Fiber Metal Laminates (FML) are hybrid composites with alternate layers of orthotropic fiber reinforced polymers (FRP) and isotropic metal alloys. FML can exhibit a nonlinear thermo-viscoelastic behavior under the influence of external mechanical and non-mechanical stimuli. Such a behavior can be due to the stress and temperature dependent viscoelastic response in one or all of its constituents, namely, the fiber and matrix (within the FRP layers) or the metal layers. To predict the overall thermoviscoelastic response of FML, it is necessary to incorporate different responses of the individual constituents through a suitable multi-scale framework. A multi-scale framework is developed to relate the constituent material responses to the structural response of FML. The multi-scale framework consists of a micromechanical model of unidirectional FRP for ply level homogenization. The upper (structural) level uses a layered composite finite element (FE) with multiple integration points through the thickness. The micromechanical model is implemented at these integration points. Another approach (alternative to use of layered composite element) uses a sublaminate model to homogenize responses of the FRP and metal layers and integrate it to continuum 3D or shell elements within the FE code. Thermo-viscoelastic constitutive models of homogenous orthotropic materials are used at the lowest constituent level, i.e., fiber, matrix, and metal in the framework. The nonlinear and time dependent response of the constituents requires the use of suitable correction algorithms (iterations) at various levels in the multi-scale framework. The multi-scale framework can be efficiently used to analyze nonlinear thermo-viscoelastic responses of FML structural components. The multi-scale framework is also beneficial for designing FML materials and structures since different FML performances can be first simulated by varying constituent properties and microstructural arrangements.

In this dissertation we prove the homogenization for two very different classes of nonlinear partial differential equations and nonlinear elliptic integro-differential equations. The first result covers the homogenization of convex and superlinear Hamilton-Jacobi equations with stationary ergodic dependence in time and space simultaneously. This corresponds to equations of the form: [mathematical equation]. The second class of equations is nonlinear integro-differential equations with periodic coefficients in space. These equations take the form, [mathematical equation]. / text

Artificial metamaterials composed of specifically designed subwavelength unit cells can support an exotic material response and present a promising future for various microwave, terahertz and optical applications. Metamaterials essentially provide the concept to microscopically manipulate light through their subwavelength inclusions, and the overall structure can be macroscopically treated as homogeneous bulk material characterized by a simple set of constitutive parameters, such as permittivity and permeability. In this dissertation, we present a complete homogenization theory applicable to one-, two- and three-dimensional metamaterials composed of nonconnected subwavelength elements. The homogenization theory provides not only deep insights to electromagnetic wave propagation among metamaterials, but also allows developing a useful and efficient analysis method for engineering metamaterials. We begin the work by proposing a general retrieval procedure to characterize arbitrary subwavelength elements in terms of a polarizability tensor. Based on this system, we may start the macroscopic analysis of metamaterials by analyzing the scattering properties of their microscopic building blocks. For one-dimensional linear arrays, we present the dispersion relations for single and parallel linear chains and study their potential use as sub-diffractive waveguides and leaky-wave antennas. For two-dimensional arrays, we interpret the metasurfaces as homogeneous surfaces and characterize their properties by a complete six-by-six tensorial effective surface susceptibility. This model also offers the possibility to derive analytical transmission and reflection coefficients for metasurfaces composed of arbitrary nonconnected inclusions with TE and TM mutual coupling. For three-dimensional metamaterials, we present a generalized theory to homogenize arrays by effective tensorial permittivity, permeability and magneto-electric coupling coefficients. This model captures comprehensive anisotropic and bianisotropic properties of metamaterials. Based on this theory, we also modify the conventional retrieval method to extract physically meaningful effective parameters of given metamaterials and fundamentally explain the common non-causality issues associated with parameter retrieval. Finally, we conceptually propose an inverse design procedure for three-dimensional metamaterials that can efficiently determine the geometry of the inclusions required to achieve the anomalous properties, such as double-negative response, in the desired frequency regime. / text

In this thesis we investigate some partial differential equations with respect to G-convergence and homogenization. We study a few monotone parabolic equations that contain periodic oscillations on several scales, and also some linear elliptic and parabolic problems where there are no periodicity assumptions. To begin with, we examine parabolic equations with multiple scales regarding the existence and uniqueness of the solution, in view of the properties of some monotone operators. We then consider G-convergence for elliptic and parabolic operators and recall some results that guarantee the existence of a well-posed limit problem. Then we proceed with some classical homogenization techniques that allow an explicit characterization of the limit operator in periodic cases. In this context, we prove G-convergence and homogenization results for a monotone parabolic problem with oscillations on two scales in the space variable. Then we consider two-scale convergence and the homogenization method based on this notion, and also its generalization to multiple scales. This is further extended to the case that allows oscillations in space as well as in time. We prove homogenization results for a monotone parabolic problem with oscillations on two spatial scales and one temporal scale, and for a linear parabolic problem where oscillations occur on one scale in space and two scales in time. Finally, we study some linear elliptic and parabolic problems where no periodicity assumptions are made and where the coefficients are created by certain integral operators. Here we prove results concerning when the G-limit may be obtained immediately and is equal to a certain weak limit of the sequence of coefficients.

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<p>Problems in stochastic homogenization theory typically deal with approximating differential operators with rapidly oscillatory random coefficients by operators with homogenized deterministic coefficients. Even though the convergence of these operators in multiple scales is well-studied in the existing literature in the form of a Law of Large Numbers, very little is known about their rate of convergence or their large deviations.</p><p>In the first part of this thesis, we we establish analytic results for the Gaussian correction in homogenization of an elliptic differential equation with random diffusion in randomly layered media. We also derive a Central Limit Theorem for a diffusion in a weakly random media.</p><p>In the second part of this thesis devise a technique for obtaining large deviation results for homogenization problems in random media. We consider the special cases of an elliptic equation with random potential, the random diffusion problem in randomly layered media and a reaction-diffusion equation with highly oscillatory reaction term.</p> / Dissertation

This thesis centers on the development and analysis of numerical multiscale methods for multiscale problems arising in steady heat conduction, heat transfer and wave propagation in heterogeneous media. In a multiscale problem several scales interact with each other to form a system which has variations over a wide range of scales. A direct numerical simulation of such problems requires resolving the small scales over a computational domain, typically much larger than the microscopic scales. This demands a tremendous computational cost. We develop and analyse multiscale methods based on the heterogeneous multiscale methods (HMM) framework, which captures the macroscopic variations in the solution at a cost much lower than traditional numerical recipes. HMM assumes that there is a macro and a micro model which describes the problem. The micro model is accurate but computationally expensive to solve. The macro model is inexpensive but incomplete as it lacks certain parameter values. These are upscaled by solving the micro model locally in small parts of the domain. The accuracy of the method is then linked to how accurately this upscaling procedure captures the right macroscopic effects. In this thesis we analyse the upscaling error of existing multiscale methods and also propose a micro model which significantly reduces the upscaling error invarious settings. In papers I and IV we give an analysis of a finite difference HMM (FD-HMM) for approximating the effective solutions of multiscale wave equations over long time scales. In particular, we consider time scales T^ε = O(ε−k ), k =1, 2, where ε represents the size of the microstructures in the medium. In this setting, waves exhibit non-trivial behaviour which do not appear over short time scales. We use new analytical tools to prove that the FD-HMM accurately captures the long time effects. We first, in Paper I, consider T^ε =O(ε−2 ) and analyze the accuracy of FD-HMM in a one-dimensional periodicsetting. The core analytical ideas are quasi-polynomial solutions of periodic problems and local time averages of solutions of periodic wave equations.The analysis naturally reveals the role of consistency in HMM for high order approximation of effective quantities over long time scales. Next, in paperIV, we consider T^ε = O(ε−1 ) and use the tools in a multi-dimensional settingto analyze the accuracy of the FD-HMM in locally-periodic media where fast and slow variations are allowed at the same time. Moreover, in papers II and III we propose new multiscale methods which substantially improve the upscaling error in multiscale elliptic, parabolic and hyperbolic partial differential equations. In paper II we first propose a FD-HMM for solving elliptic homogenization problems. The strategy is to use the wave equation as the micro model even if the macro problem is of elliptic type. Next in paper III, we use this idea in a finite element HMM setting and generalize the approach to parabolic and hyperbolic problems. In a spatially fully discrete a priori error analysis we prove that the upscaling error can be made arbitrarily small for periodic media, even if we do not know the exact period of the oscillations in the media. / <p>QC 20150216</p> / Multiscale methods for wave propagation

In this dissertation the proper determination and allowable signs of the effective parameters of metamaterial structures will be examined. First, a method that was commonly used to determine the presence of a negative index of refraction will be discussed. It will be shown that this method, which relies on the appearance of transmission peaks in the region where the real parts of the effective permittivity and permeability are expected to be negative, does not provide sufficient evidence that a negative index exists. Two alternate methods will then be presented that can be used to properly determine the sign of the index. Then, the form of the index in media that exhibit backward wave propagation will be examined from a purely three dimensional wave propagation point of view. It will be shown that in an isotropic medium backward wave propagation requires that the index be negative and in an anisotropic medium it requires that the index be negative along at least one of the three principal axes. In short, the necessary and sufficient condition for the negative index of refraction is the existence of the backward wave. Next, a technique commonly used to retrieve the effective parameters in metamaterials from transmission and reflection data will be considered. It will be shown that this retrieval technique can lead to unphysical claims that the imaginary parts of the effective permittivity or permeability can be negative even though the medium remains passive. By comparing the effective parameters obtained analytically and from the retrieval technique it will be shown that these unphysical claims are the result of error in the numerical simulations. The concepts of causality and analyticity will also be discussed by considering the Lorentzian model and it will be shown that this model does not allow the imaginary parts of the permittivity or permeability to be negative in the metamaterials consisting of split ring resonators and split wires.