ABSTRACT

IIN A COMPOSITE containing a matrix and multiple dispersed phases, the effective elasticbehavior can be represented by the relation between the average stress and strain tensors over an RVE. Given a stress or displacement load on the boundary of the RVE, when the size of the RVE is large enough, the average stress and strain may converge to unique values, respectively, which can be used to derive the elastic moduli. Because these types of methods directly correlate the change of tensors or vectors and thus obtain the homogenized properties, we classify them as the vectorial methods.