Micro-Mechanical Approach for Spanwise Periodically and Heterogeneously Beam-like Structures

This paper discusses a refined model for investigating the micro-mechanical behavior of beam-like structures, which are composed of various elastic moduli and complex geometries varying through the cross-section directions and are also periodically-repeated and heterogeneous along the axial direction. Following the previous work (Lee and Yu, 2011), the original three-dimensional static problem is first formulated in a unified and compact form using the concept of decomposition of the rotation tensor. Taking advantage of the smallness of the cross-sectional dimension-to-length parameter and the micro-to-macro heterogeneity, while also performing homogenization along the dimensional reduction simultaneously, the variational asymptotic method is rigorously used to construct a total energy function, which is asymptotically correct up to the second order. Furthermore, through the transformation procedure based on the pure kinematic relations and the linearized equilibrium equations, a generalized Timoshenko model is systematically established. For the purpose of dealing with realistic and complex geometries and constituent materials at the microscopic level, this present approach is incorporated into a commercial analysis package. A few examples available in literature are used to demonstrate the consistency and efficiency of this proposed model, especially for the structures, in which the effects of transverse shear deformations are significant.