Variational treatment of the elastic constants of disordered materials

Using the method of Hill a variational principle is derived to obtain upper and lower bounds for the effective elastic constants of disordered materials, such as polycrystals or multiphase materials. All bounds previously known are rederived and especially new bounds are given being closer than the ones of Hashin and Shtrikman. In detail the elastic constants of polycrystals built of cubic single crystals and of multiphase materials are considered. The analogous bounds for the dielectric constant of polycrystals are also given.