Micromechanics

Micromechanics (or, more precisely, micromechanics of materials) is the analysis of composite or heterogeneous materials on the level of the individual constituents that constitute these materials. Micromechanics (or, more precisely, micromechanics of materials) is the analysis of composite or heterogeneous materials on the level of the individual constituents that constitute these materials. Heterogeneous materials, such as composites, solid foams, polycrystals, or bone, consist of clearly distinguishable constituents (or phases) that show different mechanical and physical material properties. While the constituents can often be modeled through an isotropic behaviour, the microstructure characteristics (shape, orientation, varying volume fraction, ..) of heterogeneous material often leads to an anisotropic behaviour. Anisotropic material models are available for linear elasticity. In the nonlinear regime, the modeling is often restricted to orthotropic material models which does not capture the physics for all heterogeneous materials. Micromechanics goal is to predict the anisotropic response of the heterogeneous material on the basis of the geometries and properties of the individual phases, a task known as homogenization.