Polynomial approximations of a class of stochastic multiscale elasticity problems

Abstract

We consider a class of elasticity equations in Rd whose elastic moduli depend on n separated microscopic scales. The moduli are random and expressed as a linear expansion of a countable sequence of random variables which are independently and identically uniformly distributed in a compact interval. The multiscale Hellinger–Reissner mixed problem that allows for computing the stress directly and the multiscale mixed problem with a penalty term for nearly incompressible isotropic materials are considered. The stochastic problems are studied via deterministic problems that depend on a countable number of real parameters which represent the probabilistic law of the stochastic equations. We study the multiscale homogenized problems that contain all the macroscopic and microscopic information. The solutions of these multiscale homogenized problems are written as generalized polynomial chaos (gpc) expansions. We approximate these solutions by semidiscrete Galerkin approximating problems that project into the spaces of functions with only a finite number of N gpc modes. Assuming summability properties for the coefficients of the elastic moduli’s expansion, we deduce bounds and summability properties for the solutions’ gpc expansion coefficients. These bounds imply explicit rates of convergence in terms of N when the gpc modes used for the Galerkin approximation are chosen to correspond to the best N terms in the gpc expansion. For the mixed problem with a penalty term for nearly incompressible materials, we show that the rate of convergence for the best N term approximation is independent of the Lamé constants’ ratio when it goes to ∞ . Correctors for the homogenization problem are deduced. From these we establish correctors for the solutions of the parametric multiscale problems in terms of the semidiscrete Galerkin approximations. For two-scale problems, an explicit homogenization error which is uniform with respect to the parameters is deduced. Together with the best N term approximation error, it provides an explicit convergence rate for the correctors of the parametric multiscale problems. For nearly incompressible materials, we obtain a homogenization error that is independent of the ratio of the Lamé constants, so that the error for the corrector is also independent of this ratio.