Homogenisation theory for partial differential equations

An introduction to homogenisation
Yves van Gennip, CASA Seminar Wednesday 26 January 2005

G.A. Pavliotis Homogenization theory for partial differential equations http://www.ma.ic.ac.uk/~pavl/homogenization.html

Overview of my talk
What is homogenisation? Homogenisation applied to steady state heat conduction

One dimensional case

Some properties of the homogenised coefficients

What is homogenisation?
Problem with two time or length scales: slow/macroscopic and fast/microscopic

Treat these scales as independent variables Derive a homogenised problem: depends only on slow scale and still has the relevant macroscopic structure

Steady heat conduction

Assumptions and ansatz

Treat x and y as independent

Insert expansion

Lemma

Sub problem (1)

Sub problem (2)

Sub problem (3)

Back to heat conducting

Solve equation

Some remarks at this point

The cell problem satisfies the solvability condition. Unique first order corrector field if we demand zero average over Y.

Function undetermined at this point, but not needed here.

Third equation

Summary of homogenisation
Multiple scales expansion ansatz Derive equations for , and . First equation independent of y. Second equation gives cell problem. Third equation gives homogenised equation.

One dimensional case

Effective coefficient in 1D

Bounds

Recap
Homogenised problem for heat conduction. The effective coefficients in the one dimensional case.

Now: more general properties of the coefficients.

Cell problem rewritten

Effective coefficients rewritten

Uniform ellipticity

Symmetry

Recap
Variational formulation for cell problem and effective coefficients rewritten. Homogenisation preserves positive definiteness and symmetry. It does not preserve isotropy.

Conclusions
Homogenisation: look at macro scale structure. Get cell problem, homogenised equation and effective coefficients. In one dimension we calculated the coefficient. Homogenisation preserves some properties, not all.