Effective elastic properties of materials with inclusions of complex structure

In this work, the effective elastic properties of an heterogeneous medium with composite inclusions are estimated in the framework of continuum micromechanics using schemes based on the Eshelby problem. Due to the complexity of the inclusions, a finite element solution to the latter problem has been exploited with adapted boundary conditions in order to correct the bias induced by the bounded character of the mesh domain. To assess the reliability of the present model, comparisons are made with the analytical solution to the spherical inclusion problem and the results are presented. Finally, overall properties of media containing composite inclusions are estimated and the effect of a varying stiffness contrast between phases is analyzed. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.