Viscoelastic Behavior of Heterogeneous Media

Abstract : The study of the macroscopic mechanical behavior of heterogeneous viscoelastic media is of considerable theoretical and practical interest. Such heterogeneous media are defined as mechanical mixtures of several discrete linear viscoelastic phases whose stress-strain relations are assumed to be known. It is assumed that specimens of such materials which are very large in comparison to phase regions are statistically homogeneous and statistically isotropic. Macroscopical mechanical behavior is defined as average strain or stress response of such specimens to boundary loading or displacements which would produce uniform states of strain or stress in homogeneous media. The problem considered in the report is that of analytical prediction of such responses in terms of phase geometry and phase stress-strain relations. (Author)