Microstructurally-based homogenization of electromagnetic properties of periodic media (Q2478099)

The authors expand a general homogenization method for periodic electromagnetic media that is inspired by the methods used in micromechanics of which the senior author is a specialist. Macroscopic fields are defined as volume averages over a representative volume element consisting of a unit cell of the periodic medium. Boundary conditions are based on a Bloch representation of wave propagation in the heterogeneous medium, and they are directly used in the averaging procedure. There is no need to have recourse to solving locally Maxwell's equations. This is the originality of the method. The resulting electromagnetic constitutive equations can be used to directly estimate the response of any heterogeneous periodic assembly of material constituents of known geometry and properties.