On the effective viscoelastic moduli of two-phase media. I. Rigorous bounds on the complex bulk modulus

Abstract

The dynamic response of isotropic composites of two viscoelastic isotropic phases mixed in fixed proportions is considered in the frequency range where the acoustic wavelength is much larger than the inhomogeneities. The effective bulk-modulus bounds of Hashin-Shtrikman-Walpole are extended to viscoelasticity in this quasi-static régime, where the properties of the isotropic composite can be described by complex bulk and shear moduli. The effective bulk modulus is shown to be constrained to a lens-shaped region of the complex plane bounded by the outermost pair of four circular arcs (three circular arcs in the case of two-dimensional elasticity). This is proved using a new variational principle for viscoelasticity together with two established techniques for deriving bounds on effective moduli, namely the translation method and the Hashin-Shtrikman method. In this application the Hashin-Shtrikman method needs to be generalized to allow the reference tensor to have an associated quasiconvex energy. Microstructures are identified which have bulk-moduli that correspond to various points on each of the circular arcs. Thus these microstructures have extremal viscoelastic behaviour when the associated arc forms one of the outermost pair. The bounds and the extremal microstructures are similar to those obtained for the complex dielectric constant, but the methods used here are entirely different.