Intraphase fluctuations in heterogeneous magnetic materials

Abstract

The main purpose of homogenization is the determination of the effective behavior (or macroscopic behavior) of heterogeneous materials. Mean fields per phase are generally used in homogenization and represent sufficient information in most cases. However, more information about the field distribution can be necessary, particularly in nonlinear cases. Then, intraphase fluctuations have to be determined. This paper presents a method, based on homogenization tools, for the determination of both estimates and bounds for the intraphase fluctuations. The presented applications deal with magnetic materials and the results obtained with homogenization are compared to those obtained using a finite element modeling. © 2009 American Institute of Physics.