Assessment of the equivalent inclusion method for the numerical homogenization of fibrous composites

Abstract

For the homogenization of fiber composites, the equivalent inclusion method is proposed as an alternative to costly full-field methods and less accurate mean-field or effective-field approaches. We take advantage of the slenderness of the inhomogeneities to overcome the “curse of dimensionality” that was evidenced previously for this method. The resulting method is shown on a number of examples to be both accurate and computationally efficient. It is also extremely versatile, as it applies to a large variety of physical problems (beyond electric conductivity considered here).