Homogenisation of general continua

S. Toll
Chalmers University of Technology, Department of Applied Mechanics, Gteborg, Sweden

ABSTRACT: This paper raises some fundamental issues about the formulation of continuum theories and the
transition between different scales. Emphasis is put on generality with respect to extended continua and multi-
physics as well as lack of scale separation. The generic continuum model is established as an approximation of
conserved extensive quantities by volume integrals of continuous density fields. Conditions for homogenisation
are derived by introducing alternative sets of fields of different resolution and requiring those to approximate the
same extensive quantities on a given scale. This leads to general equivalence conditions which must be satisfied
by any homogenisation procedure. Specific results are given for the standard thermomechanical continuum and
a more general electro-thermomechanical micropolar continuum. The usual field averages are obtained only
under severe restrictions, such as static conditions and widely separated scales.

1 INTRODUCTION of continuum mechanics, which is not founded on

Technology involving multiphysical effects, multi-
functional materials, miniaturisation and so forth raise
the need for continuum modelling including a greater
number of interacting field quantities than just stress
and strain. This is reflected by the increasing popular-
ity of multi-physics and generalised continua.
It is curious, therefore, that the principles of
homogenisation of such general media has received so
relatively little attention. Most of the vast research that
has been published on effective properties of hetero-
geneous media rests on fairly restrictive conditions,
such as neglect of inertia and thermal effects, and
specific regimes of material behaviour, such as linear
elasticity, plasticity etc. An issue that remains largely
open is that of homogenisation when scales are not
widely separated. Work in this direction involving cer-
tain higher-order continua has begun to appear recently
(Kouznetsova, 2002).
Current homogenisation theory involves slightly
vague concepts, such as averaging, representative vol-
umes and separation of scales. Homogenisation is
usually based on average theorems, which state that
various macrofields, such as macrostress and macros-
train are equal to the unweighted averages of the
corresponding microfields. But the validity of these
theorems is restricted. The average theorems may
be supplemented by measurement arguments, stat-
ing that it is the measurable quantities that should
define the macroscopic fields. This notion risks being
un-decisive, because different types of measurements
may yield different moments of the measured quan-
measurement arguments. Confusion seems to arise,
for example, in the averaging of the fields of non-
linear kinematics, where some authors maintain that
the appropriate field averages are an arbitrary choice
(Nemat-Nasser 1999).
I will argue that a homogenisation theory, by con-
struction, must be consistent with the underlying
continuum theory, based on first principles. These
should therefore be constructed in parallel, based on
the conserved extensive quantities involved. For a ther-
momechanical continuum these are mass, momentum,
moment of momentum and energy. These quantities
must, to an acceptable degree of approximation, be
the same macroscopically as microscopically. This
simple criterion will uniquely determine what sort of
averaging one needs to do.
2 GENERIC CONTINUUM
The fundamental idea of continuum theory is that any
extensive quantity (such as mass) may be assumed to be
continuously distributed in space, so that any arbitrar-
ily small volume contains some amount of the quantity.
This implies the existence of piecewise continuous
fields (x) defined such that
where
 may be any extensive quantity, such as mass,
tity. It also risks being inconsistent with the principles momentum, energy or charge, within the region .

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 Any change of
 within  must be accompanied leading to the conditions
by an equal and opposite change outside. In continuum
theory one assumes that such exchange can happen in
either of three ways: by flux across a surface , by
external supply through some long-range interaction
or by internal production. Thus the change of is

Since neither supply (action-at-a-distance) nor

production is suppose to happen (for conserved quan-
This defines a supply field s, a production field p and tities), those should be viewed as a simplified repre-
a flux field j. The extensive quantity
 and therefore sentation of transport by flux. From a homogenisation

 , are considered observable physical quantities.
Notice how, in this way, the fields are defined in an
integral sense.
The continuum model is made consistent in the
sense that
leading to the generic balance equation
viewpoint, it seems that this kind of representation is
only acceptable if the supply and production are scale
invariant. In other words, the external supply must be
external to the largest scale considered, and the inter-
nal supply must be internal to the smallest scale. Then
s = s and p = p, and the first integral in equation (9)
vanishes. Also, the equivalence of the exchange across
a surface must hold for any large enough surface, inde-
pendent of its shape, position and orientation of the
surface (any choice of n). Thus the normal n may be
taken to be constant and removed.The surface integrals
may then also be replaced by volume integrals over .
The result is the generic equivalence conditions:

One usually requires that the fields satisfy the balance

equations for any size of , in which case they must
satisfy the equations locally:
Because there are several field variables and just
one balance equation to each extensive quantity, addi-
tional relations are required, which depend on the
specific physics. These may be constitutive relations,
conditions prescribing certain fields (such as con-
stant gravity or the vanishing of mass sources etc), or
additional physical laws, such as Maxwells equations.
3 GENERIC HOMOGENISATION
Now let us introduce a second (effective) continuum
model, denoted by overbars:
3 , where
The conditions also apply at boundaries. If the integrals
are taken over a portion of the boundary itself, they
are satisfied exactly, since the micro- and macrofields
satisfy the same boundary conditions.
Notice that the conditions must be satisfied for any
region that is sufficiently large. All continuum mod-
els that satisfy these integral conditions (within the
degree of approximation required) will be equivalent
down to the scale . There are only two possibilities:
either there exists no set of effective fields that satisfy
the conditions (except of course the trivial solution
= ,j = j ), or there are infinitely many. Most of the
possible effective fields will have higher resolution
than required, and the one sought would be one with
just enough resolution. It is worth noticing that the
with the same general properties as the first, i.e., satis-
fying the generic balance equation, initial conditions,
and boundary conditions. The two continuum models
are now required to be equivalent under observation
on some scale (within some acceptable degree of
approximation) i.e.,
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Copyright 2005 Taylor & Francis Group plc, London, UK
macrofields need not be homogeneous in , nor is it
necessary that the microfields or the microstructure is
statistically homogeneous. Hence, in practical terms,
the microstructural scale should be small compared
to (for a unique average), but macroscopic dimen-
sions need not be much larger than . In other words,
the scales must be separated but need not be widely
separated.
3.1 Scales not widely separated Table 1. Field variables of the standard continuum.

To obtain the effective field locally ((x) rather than
s p j
(x)), we consider the Taylor expansion of the

effective field, mass
mom g
ang r r g ( ) r
ener u + 12 2 g h q (u + 12 2 )

Here merely serves to exemplify either one of the

field categories or j. We may average this expression
over x + r , with r = 0, to obtain Fields of the type (17) will in fact satisfy the balance
equations locally, even when the microfields do not:

By taking gradients of (14) to various orders we obtain

(x),
(x),
(x) etc. Successive substitution of
in its 4 STANDARD THERMOMECHANICAL
these back into (13), yields an expansion of CONTINUUM
own average:
To construct the standard continuum, we consider the
four extensive quantities mass, momentum, angular
momentum and energy.We introduce the correspond-
ing density, supply, production and flux fields in
table 1. Substituting these into equations (1) and (2)
where the first three terms are given by a1 = r, defines the mass density , velocity , body force g,
a2 = 12 [rr rr], a3 = 16 rrr 12 rrr. Now applying internal energy u, heat source h, heat flux q and Cauchy
the appropriate equivalence condition, (10) or (11), to stress . The vector r is the position relative to the
the right hand side of (15) we obtain the formula centroid of , subject to r = 0.
Equation (5) then gives the the balance equations,

The higher-order average is now obtained by setting

r = 0.

where e is the permutation tensor.

4.1 Homogenisation
Equation (16) also provides the appropriate extrapola- The equivalence equations for the standard continuum
tion to evaluate the effective fields near macroscopic become
boundaries.

3.2 Macroscopic balance equations

By averaging the balance equation (5) and using the
equivalence conditions (10)(11) one obtains,

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 and combining equations (27) and (28) yields the Hill-
Mandel condition, e.g., Nemat-Nasser & Hori (1993),

The importance of this condition is that it is redun-

dant, making the homogenisation problem essentially
and
overdeterminate. Apparently, the redundancy arises
due to the loss of one field variable, q. Hence I believe
equation (38) should be interpreted has a condition
for neglecting the thermal degree of freedom, which
is otherwise necessary.

Equations (29), (30) and (31) simply require that 4.4 Nonlinear kinematics
the fluctuation fields , and
,
are uncorrelated with space. This is thus In order to obtain simple average relations for the
a necessary condition for the existence of macrofields kinematic fields, one must make the rather severe
in the standard continuum. It is not very restrictive, assumption that is uncorrelated with ,
however, and does not require widely separated scales.

4.2 Widely separated scales Let and be different mappings from one and
the same material configuration X , into two spatial
In the case where the scales sufficiently separated that configurations and  and  (which are different in
the macrofields may be taken to be uniform, or at least general): x = (X , t)  (t), and x = (X , t)  (t)
linear, on the scale , equations (24)(28) reduce to subject to (X , t0 ) = (X , t0 ) = X X . We may
then define the velocities

and the deformation gradients

Time integration of (25) between t0 and t, then yields

where X is the average taken in the material

domain. Then taking the gradient of (44), yields

Assuming separation of scales, yields the simple

Hence we have 18 equations for homogenisation of average relations,
18 field variables. We notice that even under widely
separated scales, the macrofields cannot generally be
obtained by simple averaging of the corresponding
microfields.

4.3 Hill-Mandel condition Other deformation measures may of course be derived

e.g. the Cauchy-Green deformation tensors,
from F,
Neglect of inertia, heat flux and all forms of convicted
energy, i.e.

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 Table 2. Field variables of the electro-thermomechanical micropolar continuum.

s p j

mass
charge J
momentum + P g T
angular momentum a + r ( + P) r g ( T ) r + a
energy u + G + 12 ( 2 + a w) g h + w 12 ( 2 + a w) u q S

5 ELECTRO-THERMOMECHANICAL To which Maxwells equations must be added. Note,

MICROPOLAR CONTINUUM however, the charge balance (55) is obtainable from
the latter.
To establish an electro-thermomechanical continuum,
one additional extensive quantity, charge, must be
5.1 Homogenisation
introduced. The associated density and flux fields are
charge density , and current density J . We further Again using (10) and (11) we obtain the equivalence
introduce electromagnetic momentum density P, elec- conditions
tromagnetic stress (Maxwell stress) T , electromag-
netic energy flux (Poynting vector) S, electromagnetic
field energy density G, micropolar angular momen-
tum density a, micropolar spin w and second-order
couple stress . Table 2 identifies the generic fields
in these terms. The electromagnetic quantities P, T , S
and G are related to the electric and magnetic fields
E and B by

where 0 and 0 are the dielectric permeability and per-

mittivity of vacuum. The fields E and B are of course
subject to Maxwells equations.
The balance equations are obtained as

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along with the condition r  = r, which states
that the density fluctuation must be uncorrelated with
space. These are 39 equivalence equations in 39
variables.
5.2 Widely separated scales
Assuming there are no micropolar fields a, w or couple
stress on the microscale, these reduce to
6 CONCLUDING REMARKS
Although in a sketchy manner, I have tried to convey
a few ideas of how continuum homogenisation could
be generalised in various directions.
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A number of general conditions for homogenisa-
tion have emerged. (i) Supply fields (such as body
force) and production fields (such as an internal heat
source field) must be scale invariant. Thus any inter-
actions that are specific to a microscale must be
described as a flux of a conserved quantity, not as
action-at-a-distance. (ii) Averages must be taken over
a large enough volume that they are unique, within
required accuracy. (iii) Depending on the continuum
model assumed (whether standard or extended to some
degree) certain fluctuation fields may have to be
spatially uncorrelated.
Effective fields may well exist even when scales
are not widely separated. Such effective fields may
be expressed as a series expansion in gradients of the
average, where the first term is the average itself. They
are also defined right up to a macroscopic boundary.
An admissible macrofield will automatically satisfy
the same balance equations as the microfields. The
number of integral conditions should be the same as the
number of field variables on either scale (whichever is
greatest).
The standard continuum model requires the lack
of spatial correlation of certain fluctuation fields, this
requirement may be relaxed by introducing micropolar
degrees of freedom. The redundant Hill-Mandel con-
dition arises only when thermal effects are neglected.
The standard average relations for the nonlinear kine-
matic fields, e.g. the deformation gradient tensor, are
only obtained after assuming that velocity and mass
density are statistically uncorrelated.
The electro-thermomechanical continuum is only
briefly outlined here. The objective was to point to
the possibility of truly multiphysical homogenisation,
and to show how some non-standard fields such as
couple stress should be averaged. It is certainly not
straightforward to apply those results unless they are
considerably simplified.
REFERENCES
Kouznetsova, V.G. 2002. Computational homogenisation for
the multiscale analysis of multiphase materials. PhD
thesis, Technische Universiteit Eindhoven.
Nemat-Nasser, S. & Hori, M. 1993. Micromechanics: overall
properties of heterogeneous materials. Elsevier.
Nemat-Nasser, S. 1999. Averaging theorems in finite defor-
mation plasticity. Mechanics of Materials 31: 493523.