Variational asymptotic homogenization of magneto-electro-elastic materials with coated fibers

The effective properties as well as local fields of heterogenous magneto-electro-elastic (MEE) materials with coated fibers are investigated by using the variational asymptotic homogenization method. Starting from the total electromagnetic enthalpy of the heterogenous continuum, the multiphysics micromechanics model is formulated as a constrained minimization problem taking advantage of the face that the size of the microstructure is small compared to the macroscopic size of the material. To treat general microstructure of smart material in engineering applications, this new model is implemented using finite element technique. A comparison with the finite element analysis (FEA) results demonstrates the application and accuracy of the proposed model for prediction of multiphysical behavior. The effects of the coating with different thickness and stiffness on the stress concentration factor and effective MEE properties are discussed and a lot of interesting MEE interaction phenomena are revealed, which are useful to estimate and optimize the performance of such MEE composites.