THE THEORY OF NONLINEAR HARDENING OF AN ELASTOPLASTIC COMPOSITE-MATERIAL FILLED WITH IDEALLY ELASTIC INCLUSIONS

A version of the statistical method of averaging the system of equilib rium equations for an elastoplastic two-component composite material i n order to predict its macroscopic non-linear hardening is proposed. T his version, unlike the averaging method developed previously in [1, 2 ], enables one to model and estimate the degree of connectedness of th e matrix and the inclusions and to take into account the non-uniformit y of the distribution and the development of plastic deformations. Mac roscopic governing equations are constructed which describe the non-li near hardening of a composite material outside the elasticity limit, a nd its effective characteristics are calculated. (C) 1998 Elsevier Sci ence Ltd. All rights reserved.