Localization of deformation and loss of macroscopic ellipticity in microstructured solids

In the interest of relative simplicity and analytical tractability, the present work answers this question in the restrictive framework of a layered, nonlinear (hyperelastic) solid in plane strain and more specifically under axial compression along the lamination direction. The key to the answer is found in the homogenized post-bifurcated solution of the problem, which for certain materials is supercritical (increasing force and displacement), leading to post-bifurcated equilibrium paths in these composites that show no localization of deformation for macroscopic strain well above the one corresponding to loss of ellipticity.