Averaging of elastic constants for polycrystals

Many materials of interest are polycrystals, i.e. aggregates of single crystals. Randomly distributed orientations of single crystals lead to macroscopically isotropic properties. Here, we briefly review strategies of calculating effective isotropic second and third order elastic constants from the single crystal ones. Our main emphasize is on single crystals of cubic symmetry. Especially the averaging of third order elastic constants has not been particularly successful in the past, and discrepancies have often been attributed to texturing of the polycrystal as well as to uncertainties in the measurement of elastic constants of both poly and single crystals. While this may well be true, we point out here also shortcomings in the theoretical averaging framework.