Mean-field homogenization of elasto-viscoplastic composites based on a general incrementally affine linearization method

We propose a general formulation - which we believe to be new - for the mean-field homogenization of inclusion-reinforced elasto-viscoplastic composites assuming small strains. Our proposal is based on an interplay between constitutive equations and numerical algorithms, and the key ideas behind it are the following. The evolution equations for inelastic strain and internal variables at the beginning of each time interval are linearized around the ending time of the same interval. The linearized equations are then numerically integrated using a fully implicit backward Euler scheme. The obtained algebraic equations lead to an incrementally affine stress-strain relation which involves two important terms. The first one is the algorithmic tangent operator. obtained by consistent linearization of the time discretized constitutive equations. The second term is a new one and called an affine strain increment. The proposal leads to thermoelastic-like relations directly in the time domain, and not in the Laplace-Carson (L-C) one. There is no need for viscoelastic-type integral rewriting of the evolution equations, for L-C transforms, or for numerical inversion back from L-C to time domains. The proposed method can be readily applied to sophisticated elasto-viscoplastic models with an arbitrary set of scalar or tensor internal variables, and is valid for multi-axial, non-monotonic and non-proportional loading histories. The theory is applied in detail to a well-known constitutive model, and verified against finite element simulations of representative volume elements or unit cells, for a number of composite materials. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.