On the effective elastic properties of composites with evolving microcracking

The goal of this paper is to discuss the practical implementation of a ther modynamically based procedure for the derivation of the effective response functions of composites with evolving microstructure. An example of impleme ntation of said procedure for the case of a linear elastic periodic composi te with one growing crack is presented. This example is intended to show ho w the use of this procedure differs from a global-local approach and how it can be generalized to study complex microstructures characterized by many cracks.