Sensitivity to material contrast in homogenization of random particle composites as micropolar continua

In this work, we adopt a statistically-based micropolar homogenization procedure, to obtain the overall elastic properties of homogeneous micropolar continua able to naturally account for scale and skew-symmetric shear effects. Attention is paid to the sensitivity to material contrast, defined as the mismatch between classical and micropolar constitutive properties of matrix and inclusions. A statistical specifically conceived convergence criterion is adopted which allow us to identify the REV (Representative Volume Element) for any value of material contrast.