REPRESENTATIVE VOLUME ELEMENT SIZE FOR RANDOM ELASTIC COMPOSITES: THE CORRELATION FUNCTION METHOD

摘要

In this paper, a new definition of RVE for the determination of the effective linear properties of random composites will be presented: the smallest RVE is defined as the "support domain" of the correlation functions of c (ω, x), the random field of local stiffness tensor, with e (ω, x), the random field of local strain tensor. The new definition requires ensemble averaging on many samples of the random medium. Numerical simulations show that the convergence of ChomL to Chom occurs when c (ω, 0) and e (ω, x) become uncorrelated for |x| ≥ L/2. Here, ChoinL is the average overall stiffness tensor of the periodized random material with a cubic unit cell of size L > 0. For high contrast phase, the convergence occurs for unit cell size of the periodized material larger than the minimum RVE size.