Homogenization of oscillating boundaries and applications to thin films (Q5941776)

The paper is motivated by the study of a variational model for thin films where the energy functional is given by \[ E_{\varepsilon,\delta}(u)= \int_{\Omega(\varepsilon,\delta)} W(Du) dx, \] \(W(\xi)\) being the stored energy density function and \[ \Omega(\varepsilon, \delta)= \{x\in\mathbb{R}^3:|x_3|<\varepsilon f(x_1/\delta, x_2/\delta),\;(x_1, x_2)\in\omega\}. \] The parameter \(\varepsilon\) represents the thickness of the thin film, \(\delta\) is the scale of the oscillations, and the function \(f\) parametrizes the boundary of the thin film. After a change of variables the functionals above become \[ E^\delta_\varepsilon(u)= \int_{\Omega(1,\delta)} W(D_1 u,D_2u, D_3u/\varepsilon) dx \] and the asymptotic behaviour as \(\varepsilon\to 0\) and \(\delta\to 0\) can be studied by means of the \(\Gamma\)-limit functional, which is proven to be an integral of the form \[ E(u)= \int_\omega\widetilde W(D_1u, D_2u) dx \] for a suitable function \(\widetilde W\). The expression of \(\widetilde W\) depends on the density function \(W\), on the parametrization \(f\), as well as on the order \(\delta\) and \(\varepsilon\) tend to zero. In particular, the cases \(\delta\ll \varepsilon\), \(\delta\sim \varepsilon\), \(\delta\gg \varepsilon\) provide in general different limit energy densities \(\widetilde W\). The paper contains a general theory of homogenization of nonconvex energies defined on sets with oscillating boundaries; the representation of \(\widetilde W\) then follows by coupling the homogenization procedure by a \(3d- 2d\) dimension reduction argument.