Second order homogenization of quasi-periodic structures

Abstract

The paper develops a general framework to derive the effective properties of quasi-periodic elastic medium. By using the asymptotic expansion method, the solution is expanded to the second order by solving a sequence of minimization problems. The effective stiffness tensors fields entering in the expression of the macroscopic energy are obtained by solving several families of microscopic problems posed on the unit cell and which bring into play only the microstructure. As an illustrative example, we consider an anti-plane elastic case of a heterogeneous cylinder made of a bi-layer laminate and submitted to the gravity. The unit cell being one-dimensional, all the associated elementary problems can be solved in a closed form and one shows that the effective energy of the medium expanded up to the second order depends not only on the strain gradient, but also on the gradient of the volume fraction \(\theta\) characterizing the repartition of the two materials in the laminate.