Random Heterogeneous Materials

Composites, porous media, foams, colloids, geological media, and biological media are all examples of heterogeneous materials. The relationship between the macroscopic (transport, mechanical, electromagnetic, and chemical) properties and material microstructure is formulated. Topics include statistical characterization of the microstructure; percolation theory; fractals; sphere packings; Monte Carlo techniques; image analysis; homogenization theory; cluster and perturbation expansions; variational bounding techniques; topology optimization methods; and cross-property relations. Biological and cosmological applications are discussed.