A MULTI-STAGE HOMOGENIZATION METHOD FOR DETERMINING THE EFFECTIVE ELASTIC PROPERTIES OF LAYERED MATERIALS

Abstract

The paper presents a multi-stage homogenization method to determine the effective properties of layered materials which have n elastic isotropic layers or elastic transversely isotropic (in the direction of the layers) ones. The homogenization procedure uses (n-1) times an explicit analytical formula for the layered material with n layers. The normal stress and strain at the interface between two material layers are assumed to be continuous, i.e., no slip and no detachment. The results obtained from this method are compared with the existing analytical four-sub-matrix method and they show good agreements. The multi-stage homogenization method is a powerful tool that can be used to quickly identify the effective properties of the layered materials.