An efficient approach to determine the effective properties of random heterogeneous materials

Many studies of effective properties of random heterogeneous materials focus on determination of the size of representative volume element (RVE), but few discuss acceleration of the convergence rates of the apparent material properties as the sizes of volume elements increase. In this study, the convergence of the apparent thermo-mechanical properties of aluminum/alumina random heterogeneous materials is investigated, and Richardson extrapolation technique is introduced to accelerate the convergence rates of apparent material properties. It is found that this approach efficiently predicts the effective material properties with significantly reduced computational effort. Meanwhile, the homogenized material properties are compared with theoretical bounds, i.e., the Voigt-Reuss bounds and the Hashin-Shtrikman bounds.