“…The approximative character of the variational bounds and their restricted opportunities (for the formula manipulations) of the variational methods in comparison with the different self-consistent methods is explained by a fundamental reason. Indeed, the self-consistent methods in linear statics of mechanics of CMs were exploited in a wide class of micromechanical problems for CMs with non-ellipsoidal, coated, and continuously inhomogeneous heterogeneities with possible non-ideal interface as well as for different non-local problems (inhomogeneous remote loading, functionally graded materials, clustered materials, bounded media, nanocomposites, non-local constitutive law, e.g., peridynamics; see, e.g., [16,17] for references). Analyses of so much diverse (in the sense of microtopology and constitutive laws) problems are essentially simplified due to linear dependence of the effective properties on average fields (strains and stresses) inside the inclusions.…”