Effective Conductivity of Spiral and other Radial Symmetric Assemblages
  Assemblies of circular inclusions with spiraling laminate structure inside them are studied, such as spirals with inner inclusions, spirals with shells, assemblies of "wheels" - structures from laminates with radially dependent volume fractions, complex axisymmetric three-dimensional micro-geometries called Connected Hubs and Spiky Balls. The described assemblages model structures met in rock mechanics, biology, etc. The classical effective medium theory coupled with hierarchical homogenization is used. It is found that fields in spiral assemblages satisfy a coupled system of two second order differential equations, rather than a single differential equation; a homogeneous external field applied to the assembly is transformed into a rotated homogeneous field inside of the inclusions. The effective conductivity of the two-dimensional Star assembly is equivalent to that of Hashin-Shtrikman coated circles, but the conductivity of analogous three-dimensional Spiky Ball is different from the conductivity of coated sphere geometry. 
Andrej Cherkaev and Alexander D. Pruss
math-ph math.MP