Toughening by crack deflection in the homogenization of brittle composites with soft inclusions

摘要

We present a simple example of toughening mechanism in the homogenization ofcomposites with soft inclusions, produced by crack deflection at microscopiclevel. We show that the mechanism is connected to the irreversibility of thecrack process. Because of that it cannot be detected through the standardhomogenization tool of the $\Gamma$-convergence.