Thermo-chemo-mechanical Effective Properties for Homogeneous and Heterogeneous n-Phase Mixtures with Application to Curing

Our work presents an extension of a composite sphere model to temperature-dependent elastic effects accompanied by curing. Homogenization of a representative unit cell (micro-RVE) on the heterogeneous microscale which accounts for thermo-chemo-mechanical coupling with linear elasticity yields volumetric effective properties. Two conceptions are considered: Firstly, a homogeneous mixture with n-phases is assumed. Secondly, a geometric arrangement on the microscale is represented by the n-layered composite sphere model. In a numerical study for a 3-phase matrix it is demonstrated that the effective properties lie within certain bounds.