Thermal diffusion in cyclic laminated composites: Spectral properties and application to the homogenization (Q1261986)

The eigenvalue problem associated with thermal diffusion studies in cyclic multilayered composites is considered. The transfer matrix of these walls can be made explicit with the help of Chebyshev's polynomials. This general property is exploited in a detailed study of the first group of eigenvalues in order to propose a homogenization process for these media. By this way it is possible to find a homogeneous medium which has approximately the same first eigenvalues as the actual multilayered composite. The application to a binary composite leads to an interpretation of the time scale of the homogenized medium.