Numerical homogenization of N-component composites including stochastic interface defects

The purpose of this paper is to present a mathematical formulation and nume rical analysis for a homogenization problem of random elastic composites wi th stochastic interface defects. The homogenization of composites so define d is carried out in two steps: (i) probabilistic averaging of stochastic di scontinuities in the interphase region, (ii) probabilistic homogenization b y extending the effective modules method to media random in the micro-scale . To obtain such an approach the classical mathematical homogenization meth od is formulated for n-component composite with random elastic components a nd implemented in the FEM-based computer program. The article contains also numerous computational experiments illustrating stochastic sensitivity of the model to interface defects parameters and verifying statistical converg ence of probabilistic simulation procedure. Copyright (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.