Effective properties of suspensions/emulsions, porous and composite materials

A new method (a version of a mean field method) is suggested to calculate effective properties of suspensions/emulsions, porous and dispersed materials. The aim is to demonstrate a wide range of applicability of the new method. To show the idea of the new method the dependence of the effective diffusion coefficient in the porous medium on the porosity is deduced. Based on the same method the following dependences are deduced: the effective viscosity of suspensions and emulsions as functions of volume fraction of suspended particles or droplets, elastic modules of rubber/polymer sheets with cracks and elastic modules of composite materials on the volume fraction of inclusions in the case of an arbitrary number of different types of inclusions. In all cases the calculated dependences are compared with available experimental data and published theoretical models. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.