BOUNDS FOR EFFECTIVE MATERIAL PROPERTIES OF STATISTICALLY NONHOMOGENEOUS SOLID

Abstract

The prediction of the effective properties of heterogeneous materials is of primary importance in design or analysis. For statistically nonhomogeneous materials, the prediction is laborious since the effective properties vary depending on various conditions. This paper presents a method of estimating bounds for all possible effective properties for given limited information. Considering permeable flow through rock mass as an example, the bounds are rigorously derived and are compared with ranges obtained from numerical simulation of heterogeneous porous media. The results support the validity of the proposed method.