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Anisotropic effective higher-order response of heterogeneous Cauchy elastic materials

The homogenization results obtained by Bacca et al. (Homogenization of heterogeneous Cauchy-elastic materials leads to Mindlin second-gradient elasticity. Part I: Closed form expression for the effective higher-order constitutive tensor. arXiv:1305.2365 Submitted, 2013), to define effective second-gradient elastic materials from heterogeneous Cauchy elastic solids, are extended here to the case of phases having non-isotropic tensors of inertia. It is shown that the nonlocal constitutive tensor for the homogenized material depends on both the inertia properties of the RVE and the difference between the effective and the matrix local elastic tensors. Results show that: (i.) a composite material can be designed to result locally isotropic but nonlocally orthotropic; (ii.) orthotropic nonlocal effects are introduced when a dilute distribution of aligned elliptical holes and, in the limit case, of cracks is homogenized.