On Choosing Effective Symmetry Classes for Elasticity Tensors

We formulate a method of representing a generally anisotropic elasticity tensor by an elasticity tensor exhibiting a material symmetry: an effective tensor. The method for choosing the effective tensor is based on examining the features of the plot of the monoclinic-distance function of a given tensor, choosing an appropriate symmetry class, and then finding the closest tensor in that class. The concept of the effective tensor is not tantamount to the closest tensor since one always obtains a closer approximation using a monoclinic tensor than a tensor of any other nontrivial symmetry. Hence, we use qualitative features of the plot of the monoclinic-distance function to choose an effective symmetry class within which the closest tensor can be computed.