Zeroth-Order Shear Deformation Micro-Mechanical Model for Periodic Heterogeneous Beam-like Structures

Abstract

This paper discusses a new model for investigating the micro-mechanical behavior of beam-like structures composed of various elastic moduli and complex geometries varying through the cross-sectional directions and also periodically-repeated along the axial directions. The original three-dimensional problem is first formulated in an unified and compact intrinsic form using the concept of decomposition of the rotation tensor. Taking advantage of two smallness of the cross-sectional dimension-to-length parameter and the micro-to-macro heterogeneity and performing homogenization along dimensional reduction simultaneously, the variational asymptotic method is used to rigorously construct an effective zeroth-order beam model, which is similar a generalized Timoshenko one (the first-order shear deformation model) capable of capturing the transverse shear deformations, but still carries out the zeroth-order approximation which can maximize simplicity and promote efficiency. Two examples available in literature are used to demonstrate the consistence and efficiency of this new model, especially for the structures, in which the effects of transverse shear deformations are significant.