Second-order two-scale computational method for ageing linear viscoelastic problem in composite materials with periodic structure

The correspondence principle is an important mathematical technique to compute the non-ageing linear viscoelastic problem as it allows to take advantage of the computational methods originally developed for the elastic case. However, the correspondence principle becomes invalid when the materials exhibit ageing. To deal with this problem, a second-order two-scale (SOTS) computational method in the time domain is presented to predict the ageing linear viscoelastic performance of composite materials with a periodic structure. First, in the time domain, the SOTS formulation for calculating the effective relaxation modulus and displacement approximate solutions of the ageing viscoelastic problem is formally derived. Error estimates of the displacement approximate solutions for SOTS method are then given. Numerical results obtained by the SOTS method are shown and compared with those by the finite element method in a very fine mesh. Both the analytical and numerical results show that the SOTS computational method is feasible and efficient to predict the ageing linear viscoelastic performance of composite materials with a periodic structure.