Periodic homogenization in the context of structured deformations

Abstract

An energy for first-order structured deformations in the context of periodic homogenization is obtained. This energy, defined in principle by relaxation of an initial energy of integral type featuring contributions of bulk and interfacial terms, is proved to possess an integral representation in terms of relaxed bulk and interfacial energy densities. These energy densities, in turn, are obtained via asymptotic cell formulae defined by suitably averaging, over larger and larger cubes, the bulk and surface contributions of the initial energy. The integral representation theorem, the main result of this paper, is obtained by mixing blow-up techniques, typical in the context of structured deformations, with the averaging process proper of the theory of homogenization.