A Multiphysics Micromechanics Model of Smart Materials Using the Variational Asymptotic Method

The primary objective of the present paper is to develop a micromechanics model for the prediction of the effective properties and the distribution of local fields of smart materials which are responsive to fully coupled electric, magnetic, thermal and mechanical fields. This work is based on the framework of the variational asymptotic method for unit cell homogenization (VAMUCH), a recently developed micromechanics modeling scheme. For practicle use of this theory, we implement this new model using the finite element method into the computer program VAMUCH. For validation, several examples will be presented in the full paper to compare with existing models and demonstrate the application and advantages of the new model.