Homogenization of free discontinuity problems (Q2365375)

Following Griffith's theory, hyperelastic brittle media subject to fracture can be modeled by the introduction, in addition to the elastic volume energy, of a surface term which accounts for crack initiation. In its simplest formulation, the energy of a deformation \(u\) is of the form \[ E(u, K)=\int_{\Omega\setminus K}f(\nabla u)dx+ \lambda{\mathcal H}^{n-1}(K),\tag{1} \] where \(\nabla u\) is the deformation gradient, \(\Omega\) is the reference configuration, and \(K\) is the crack surface. The bulk energy density \(f\) accounts for elastic deformations outside the crack, while \(\lambda\) is a constant given by Griffith's criterion for fracture initiation. The existence of equilibria, under appropriate boundary conditions, can be deduced from the study of minimum pairs \((u,K)\) for the energy (1), and a description of crack growth can be obtained by a limit of successive minimizations at fixed time steps. The functionals \({\mathcal F}\) on \(SBV(\Omega;\mathbb{R}^m)\) which have bulk and surface parts, and which satisfy the translation invariance condition \({\mathcal F}(u)={\mathcal F}(u+c)\) for all constant vectors \(c\), can be written in the form \[ {\mathcal F}(u)= \int_\Omega f(x,\nabla u)dx+\int_{S_u}g \bigl(x,(u^+-u^-)\otimes \nu_u\bigr) d {\mathcal H}^{n-1}. \tag{2} \] In this paper we study the asymptotic behaviour of functionals of the type (2) modelling cellular elastic materials with fine microstructure. Here we consider functionals \[ {\mathcal F}_\varepsilon (u)= \int_\Omega f\left( {x\over \varepsilon},\nabla u\right) dx+\int_{S_u} g\left({x \over \varepsilon},(u^+-u^-)\otimes\nu_u\right)d{\mathcal H}^{n-1}, \] where \(f\) and \(g\) are Borel functions, periodic in the first variable, which respectively model the response of the material to elastic deformation and fracture at a microscopic scale (which is given by the small parameter \(\varepsilon)\). The main result of this paper is showing that, under the growth conditions \[ \alpha |\xi |^p\leq f(x,\xi) \leq\beta(1+ |\xi|^p), \quad\alpha\leq g(x, \xi)\leq \beta \] for all \(x\in\mathbb{R}^n\), \(\xi\in M^{m\times n}\), with \(p>1\), \(\alpha, \beta>0\), we obtain, in the limit when \(\varepsilon\to 0\), a minimum problem for the functional \[ {\mathcal F}_{\text{hom}}(u)= \int_\Omega f_{\text{hom}} (\nabla u)dx+ \int_{S_u}g_{\text{hom}}\bigl((u^+-u^-)\otimes \nu_u \bigr)d {\mathcal H}^{n-1}. \] The integrands \(f_{\text{hom}}\) and \(g_{\text{hom}}\) can be characterized by asymptotic formulas.