Effective nonlinear behavior of electrostrictive multiphase composites: A micromechanical study

The micromechanics modeling of the nonlinear behavior of the electrostrictive multiphase composites is developed using an incremental formulation based on the variational-asymptotic method. The microstructure of composites is assumed to be periodic. Taking advantage of the small size of the microstructure, we formulate a variational statement of energy change of the unit cell through an asymptotic analysis of the functional to predict the effective instantaneous tangential electromechanical matrix of the composites. Several numerical examples are used to demonstrate the capability of the present theory.