Hashin-Shtrikman bounds with eigenfields in terms of texture coefficients for polycrystalline materials

Abstract The Hashin-Shtrikman bounds accounting for eigenfields are represented in terms of tensorial texture coefficients for arbitrarily anisotropic materials and arbitrarily textured polycrystals. This requires a short review of the Hashin-Shtrikman bounds with eigenfields, an investigation of the polarization field determined by the stationarity condition and, finally, the analysis of the resulting expressions of the Hashin-Shtrikman bound of the effective potential. The resulting expressions are given naturally in terms of symmetric second-order tensors and minor and major symmetric fourth-order tensors. These properties induce, based on the tensorial Fourier expansion of the crystallite orientation distribution function, a dependency of all Hashin-Shtrikman properties in terms of solely the second- and the fourth-order texture coefficients. This is a new result, which is not self-evident, since an alternative formulation of the polarization field would alter the implied algebraic properties of the Hashin-Shtrikman functional. The results obtained by the polarization field, determined through the stationarity condition of the Hashin-Shtrikman functional, are discussed and demonstrated with an example for linear thermoelasticity in which bounds for elastic and thermoelastic properties are illustrated.