Homogenizing elastic lattices with mechanisms

We propose an asymptotic method for homogenizing periodic elastic lattices that works in the presence of mechanisms, both of the macroscopic type (strain-producing modes) and of the microscopic type (internal modes). When a microscopic mechanism is present, the unit-cell problem produced by classical homogenization is singular. It can be fixed by including the amplitude θ(X) of the mechanism as an additional macroscopic degree of freedom (enrichment variable) contributing to the effective energy via its gradient ∇θ(X). When a macroscopic mechanism is present, homogenization delivers a degenerate effective energy at leading order, which can be regularized by accounting for the strain gradient. We introduce an asymptotic second-order homogenization scheme that integrates these two features: it delivers an effective energy capturing both the strain-gradient effect ∇ɛ(X) relevant to macroscopic mechanisms, and the ∇θ(X) regularization relevant to microscopic mechanisms, if any is present. The versatility of the approach is illustrated with a selection of lattices displaying a variety of effective behaviors. It follows a unified pattern that leads to a classification of these effective behaviors. Whereas the procedure delivers known effective models for elastic lattices without mechanisms, it can generate novel effective models for lattices possessing mechanisms.