LAUSR

Abstract A cluster interaction model has been proposed to account for the spatial distribution and morphology of particles when estimating the effective properties of elastic and thermoelastic composites (Molinari & El Mouden, 1996). In the present paper this approach is extended to elastic-viscoplastic composites. To this end the tangent linearization of the non-linear viscoplastic law and the concept of additive interaction equation are used. Although the extension is formulated for the non-linear case, first applications are considered for linear viscoelastic composites, a situation rich enough to evaluate the interest of the cluster interaction approach. Results of the model are compared to numerical homogenization for periodic unit cells with two cubic configurations.