Generalized boundary conditions on representative volume elements and their use in determining the effective material properties

We discuss generalized boundary conditions for representative volume elements (RVE), which include the classical boundary conditions as special cases. From the generalization, stochastic boundary conditions are derived. These allows to adjust the the stiffness of the boundary conditions smoothly between the extremal cases of homogeneous strain and homogeneous stress boundary conditions. We found that it needs to be distinguished between the resistance of the boundary conditions against homogeneous and inhomogeneous RVE deformation. The stochastic BC can combine the moderate stiffness of the well known periodic boundary conditions with the high resistance against localization of the homogeneous strain boundary conditions. (© 2013 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)