Effective pressure-sensitive elastoplastic behavior of particle-reinforced composites and porous media under isotropic loading

The composite under investigation consists of an elastoplastic matrix reinforced by elastic particles or weakened by pores. The material forming the matrix is pressure-sensitive. The Drucker–Prager yield criterion and a one-parameter non-associated flow rule are employed to formulate the yield behavior of the matrix. The objective of this work is to estimate the effective elastoplastic behavior of the composite under isotropic tensile and compressive loadings. To achieve this objective, the composite sphere assemblage model of Hashin [Z. Hashin, The elastic moduli of heterogeneous materials, ASME J. Appl. Mech. 29 (1962) 143–150] is used. Exact solutions are thus derived as estimations for the effective secant and tangent bulk moduli of the composite. The effects of the loading modes and phase properties on the effective elastoplastic behavior of the composite are analytically and numerically evaluated.     

A one-parameter generalized self-consistent model for isotropic multiphase composites

The classical generalized self-consistent model (GSCM) is recognized to be suitable and efficient for estimating the effective moduli of an isotropic composite consisting of an isotropic host matrix and an isotropic inclusion phase. The present work aims to enlarge the scope of the GSCM so that it becomes applicable to a good number of important situations where the phases cannot be differentiated as the host matrix and inclusions. This objective is achieved first by inserting into the unknown effective medium a coated composite sphere whose core is made of the unknown effective medium and whose coatings are formed of the constituent phases and then by imposing an energy equivalency condition. The equations thus obtained to characterize the effective bulk and shear moduli involve a microstructural parameter which turns out to be capable of describing in some sense how far a microstructure is from the host matrix/inclusion morphology. The important case of two-phase composites is studied in detail to illustrate the salient features of the proposed model.     

Rigorous bounds on the effective moduli of composites and inhomogeneous bodies with negative-stiffness phases

We review the theoretical bounds on the effective properties of linear elastic inhomogeneous solids (including composite materials) in the presence of constituents having non-positive-definite elastic moduli (so-called negative-stiffness phases). Using arguments of Hill and Koiter, we show that for statically stable bodies the classical displacement-based variational principles for Dirichlet and Neumann boundary problems hold but that the dual variational principle for traction boundary problems does not apply. We illustrate our findings by the example of a coated spherical inclusion whose stability conditions are obtained from the variational principles. We further show that the classical Voigt upper bound on the linear elastic moduli in multi-phase inhomogeneous bodies and composites applies and that it imposes a stability condition: overall stability requires that the effective moduli do not surpass the Voigt upper bound. This particularly implies that, while the geometric constraints among constituents in a composite can stabilize negative-stiffness phases, the stabilization is insufficient to allow for extreme overall static elastic moduli (exceeding those of the constituents). Stronger bounds on the effective elastic moduli of isotropic composites can be obtained from the Hashin–Shtrikman variational inequalities, which are also shown to hold in the presence of negative stiffness.     

Homogenization methods to approximate the effective response of random fibre-reinforced Composites

In this article a fibre-reinforced composite material is modelled via an approach employing a representative volume element with periodic boundary conditions. The effective elastic moduli of the material are thus derived. In particular, the method of asymptotic homogenization is used where a finite number of fibres are randomly distributed within the representative periodic cell. The study focuses on the efficacy of such an approach in representing a macroscopically random (hence transversely isotropic) material. Of particular importance is the sensitivity of the method to cell shape, and how this choice affects the resulting (configurationally averaged) elastic moduli. The averaging method is shown to yield results that lie within the Hashin–Shtrikman variational bounds for fibre-reinforced media and compares well with the multiple scattering and (classical) self-consistent approximations with a deviation from the latter in the larger volume fraction cases. Results also compare favourably with well-known experimental data from the literature.     

Anisotropic effective higher-order response of heterogeneous Cauchy elastic materials

The homogenization results obtained by Bacca et al. (2013a), to identify the effective second-gradient elastic materials from heterogeneous Cauchy elastic solids, are extended here to the case of phases having non-isotropic tensors of inertia. It is shown that the nonlocal constitutive tensor for the homogenized material depends on both the inertia properties of the RVE and the difference between the effective and the matrix local elastic tensors. Results show that: (i) orthotropic nonlocal effects follow from homogenization of a dilute distribution of aligned elliptical holes and, in the limit case, of cracks; (ii) even under the dilute assumption and isotropic local effective behaviour, homogenization may lead to effective nonlocal orthotropic properties.     

Tailored heterogeneity increases overall stability regime of composites having a negative-stiffness inclusion

Recent theoretical and experimental results have shown the possibility of enormous increases in composite material overall elastic stiffness, damping, thermal expansion, piezoelectricity, etc., when the composite contains a tuned non-positive-definite (i.e., negative stiffness) constituent. For such composite materials to have practical utility, they must be stable. Recent research has shown they can be, for a limited range of constituent negative stiffness. This research has treated linear elastic composite materials with homogeneous phases, via the energy method and full dynamic stability analyses.In the present work, we first show how to analyze the composites previously treated by the comprehensive but simpler static stability approach, obtaining closed-form results. We then employ this approach to show that permitting heterogeneity of the positive-definite phase can substantially increase the range of constituent negative stiffness while maintaining overall composite stability. We first treat the positive-definite phase heterogeneity as piecewise homogeneous, and then treat it as continuously-varying. In the continuously-varying heterogeneity case, we seek the radially optimal distribution of the elastic moduli in the coatings, under constant coating average moduli constraint, to permit the most negative possible inclusion stiffness while maintaining overall composite stability. This is accomplished for three coating cases: constant bulk modulus but arbitrarily radially-varying shear modulus; constant shear modulus but arbitrarily radially-varying bulk modulus; and both moduli arbitrarily radially varying. We find the optimal coatings to be: a heterogeneous one with shear modulus being a specific continuously decreasing function of radius for the first case; a homogeneous one for the second case; and a heterogeneous one with both moduli being either Dirac-delta or Heaviside-step decreasing functions of radius for the last case (if the coating moduli are unrestricted in magnitude or have upper limits, respectively). The results show a substantial increase in the permissible inclusion negative stiffness range is provided by coating heterogeneity, while maintaining overall composite stability. Such an increased range of constituent negative stiffness provides an enlarged tuning parameter range for the development of novel, high-performance composite materials.     

On the overall elastic moduli of composites with spherical coated fillers

A micromechanical approach is presented to estimate the overall linear elastic moduli of three phase composites consisting of two phase coated spherical particles randomly dispersed in a homogeneous isotropic matrix. The theoretical method is based on Eshelby’s equivalent inclusion method and its recent extension by Shodja and Sarvestani [J. Appl. Mech. 68 (2001) 3] to evaluate the local field variables in case of double (multi) inhomogeneities. Using Tanaka–Mori theorem [J. Elasticity 2 (1972) 199] and a decomposition of Green’s function integral equation, the pair-wise average phase values of stress and strain in two interacting coated particles are estimated. Following Ju and Chen [Acta Mech. 103 (1994) 103; Acta Mech. 103 (1994) 123] the ensemble phase volume average of stress and strain fields can be evaluated within a representative volume element containing a finite number of coated particles. Comparisons with classical bounds are presented to illustrate the accuracy of the proposed method.     

Finite and transversely isotropic elastic cylinders under compression with end constraint induced by friction

This paper derives an exact solution for the non-uniform stress and displacement fields within a finite, transversely isotropic, and linear elastic cylinder under compression with a kind of radial constraint induced by friction between the end surfaces of the cylinder and the loading platens. The main feature of the present work is the introduction of a general solution form for Lekhnitskii’s stress function such that the governing equation and all end and curved boundary conditions of the cylinder are satisfied exactly. Two different solutions were obtained corresponding to the real or complex characteristic roots of the governing equation, depending on the combination of the elastic material constants. The solution by Watanabe [Watanabe, S., 1996. Elastic analysis of axi-symmetric finite cylinder constrained radial displacement on the loading end. Structural Engineering/Earthquake Engineering JSCE 13, 175s–185s] for isotropic cylinders under compression test can be recovered as a special case. Our numerical results show that both the non-uniform stress distribution and the difference between the apparent and the true Young’s moduli of the cylinder are very sensitive to the anisotropy of Young’s moduli, Poisson’s ratios and shear moduli. A more distinct bulging shape of the cylinder is expected when anisotropy in shear modulus is strong, the cylinder is relatively short, and the end constraint is large. The bulging shape, however, does not depend strongly on anisotropy of either Poisson’s ratio or Young’s modulus.     

Strong-contrast expansion correlation approximations for the effective elastic moduli of multiphase composites

Following the previous approach of Pham and Torquato (J Appl Phys 94:6591–6602, 2003) and Torquato (J Mech Phys Solids 45:1421–1448, 1997; Random heterogeneous media, Springer, Berlin, 2002), we derive the strong-contrast expansions for the effective elastic moduli K _e,G _e of d-dimensional multiphase composites. The series consists of a principal reference part and a fluctuation part (perturbation about a homogeneous reference or comparison material), which contains multi-point correlation functions that characterize the microstructure of the composite. We propose a three-point correlation approximation for the fluctuation part with an objective choice of the reference phase moduli, such that the fluctuation terms vanish. That results in the approximations for the effective elastic moduli of isotropic composites, which coincide with the well-known self-consistent and Maxwell approximations for two-phase composites having respective microstructures. Applications to some two-phase materials are given.     

An explicit expression of the effective moduli for composite materials filled with coated inclusions

The obvious shortcoming of the generalized self-consistent method (GSCM) is that the effective shear modulus of composite materials estimated by the method can not be expressed in an explicit form. This is inconvenient in engineering applications. In order to overcome that shortcoming of GSCM, a reformation of GSCM is made and a new micromechanical scheme is suggested in this paper. By means of this new scheme, both the effective bulk and shear moduli of an inclusion-matrix composite material can be obtained and be expressed in simple explicit forms. A comparison with the existing models and the rigorous Hashin-Shtrikman bounds demonstrates that the present scheme is accurate. By a two-step homogenization technique from the present new scheme, the effective moduli of the composite materials with coated spherical inclusions are obtained and can also be expressed in an explicit form. The comparison with the existing theoretical and experimental results shows that the present solutions are satisfactory. Moreover, a quantitative comparison of GSCM and the Mori-Tanaka method (MTM) is made based on a unified scheme. The project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under the Contract NO. 19632030 and 19572008, and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation     

Multi-scale finite element analyses of sheet metals by using SEM-EBSD measured crystallographic RVE models

In this study, two multi-scale analyses codes are newly developed by combining a homogenization algorithm and an elastic/crystalline viscoplastic finite element (FE) method (Nakamachi, E., 1988. A finite element simulation of the sheet metal forming process. Int. J. Numer. Meth. Eng. 25, 283–292; Nakamachi, E., Dong, X., 1996. Elastic/crystalline viscoplastic finite element analysis of dynamic deformation of sheet metal. Int. J. Computer-Aided Eng. Software 13, 308–326; Nakamachi, E., Dong, X., 1997. Study of texture effect on sheet failure in a limit dome height test by using elastic/crystalline viscoplastic finite element analysis. J. Appl. Mech. Trans. ASME(E) 64, 519–524; Nakamachi, E., 1998. Elastic/crystalline viscoplastic finite element modeling based on hardening–softening evaluation equation. In: Proc. of the 6th NUMIFORM, pp. 315–321; Nakamachi, E., Hiraiwa, K., Morimoto, H., Harimoto, M., 2000a. Elastic/crystalline viscoplastic finite element analyses of single- and poly-crystal sheet deformations and their experimental verification. Int. J. Plasticity 16, 1419–1441; Nakamachi, E., Xie, C.L., Harimoto, M., 2000b. Drawability assessment of BCC steel sheet by using elastic/crystalline viscoplastic finite element analyses. Int. J. Mech. Sci. 43, 631–652); (1) a “semi-implicit” finite element (FE) code and (2) a “dynamic explicit” FE code. These were applied to predict the plastic strain induced yield loci and the formability of sheet metal in the macro scale, and simultaneously the crystal texture and hardening evolutions in the micro scale. The isotropic and kinematical hardening laws are employed in the crystalline plasticity constitutive equation. For the multi-scale structure, two-scales are considered. One is a microscopic polycrystal structure and the other a macroscopic elastic plastic continuum. We measure crystal morphologies by using the SEM-EBSD apparatus with a unit of about 3.8 μm voxel, and define a three dimensional (3D) representative volume element (RVE) for the micro polycrystal structure, which satisfy the periodicity condition of crystal orientation distribution. A “micro” finite element modeling technique is newly established to minimize the total number of finite elements in the micro scale. Next, the “semi-implicit” crystallographic homogenization FE code, which employs the SEM-EBSD measured RVE, is applied to the 99.9% pure-iron uni-axial tensile problem to predict the texture evolution and the subsequent yield loci in the various strain paths. These “semi implicit” results reveal that the plastic strain induced anisotropy in the micro and macro levels can be predicted by our FE analyses. The kinematical hardening law leads a distinct plastic strain induced anisotropy. Our “dynamic-explicit” FE code is applied to simulate the limit dome height (LDH) test problem of the mild steel DQSK, the high strength steel HSLA and the aluminum alloy AL6022 sheet metals, which were adopted as the NUMISHEET2005 Benchmark sheet metals (Smith, L.M., Pourboghrat, F., Yoon, J.-W., Stoughton, T.B., 2005. NUMISHEET2005. In: Proc. of 6th Int. Conf. Numerical Simulation of 3D Sheet Metal Forming Processes, PART A and B(Benchmark), pp. 409–451) to estimate formability. The “dynamic explicit” results reveal that the initial crystal orientation distribution has a large affects to a plastic strain induced texture and anisotropic hardening evolutions and sheet formability.     

各向同性弹性损伤的双标量描述

损伤状态的描述是损伤力学中仍未完善解决的基本问题．我们旨在对此问题就最简单的一种情形——各向同性弹性损伤，进行较为全面的研究．首先，指出了古典各向同性损伤理论中，基于应变等效假设，用单个标量损伤变量描述损伤状态的局限性．然后，建立了一个用两个标量损伤变量描述的各向同性弹性损伤模型．此模型解除了古典理论的局限，能完全描述各向同性弹性损伤，并且得到本文数值实验的验证．最后，将本文模型与现有细观力学结果连接，给出了宏细观损伤变量之间的关系，使得细观量可以通过宏观量来反映，建立了一个用细观损伤材料常数描述细观缺陷特征的损伤本构模型     

A generalized self-consistent Mori-Tanaka model for predicting the effective moduli of the coated inclusion based composite materials

The weak point of the generalized self-consistent method (GSCM) is that its solution for the effective shear moduli involves determining the complicated displacement and strain fields in constitutents. Furthermore, the effective moduli estimated by GSCM cannot be expressed in an explicit form. Instead of following the procedure of GSCM, in this paper a generalized self-consistent Mori-Tanaka method (GSCMTM) is developed by means of Hill's interface condition and the assumption that the strain in the inclusion is uniform. A comparison with the existing theoretical and experimental results shows that the present GSCMTM is sufficiently accurate to predict the effective moduli of the coated inclusion-based composite materials. Moreover, it is interesting to find that the application of Hill's interface condition in volumetric domain is equivalent to the Mori-Tanaka average field approximation. This project was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation.     

Differential geometrical method in elastic composite with imperfect interfaces

I.IntroductionWhethertheinterfacesofcompositematerialsareperfectornotwillaffectitsmacromechanicaloreffectivepropertiesimportantly.Butsofar,almostallofthestudiesontheeffectivepropertiesofcompositematerialsarebasedontheassumptionthattheinterfacesareperfectl"2].Infact,thisisnotappropriateforallinterfaces[31.Thusthestudiesonmechanicalpropertyofcompositematerialswithimperfaceintert'acehavebeenconsideredrecentlyinsomeliteratures.Hashin16]hasextendedtheelasticextremumprinciplesofminimumpotentialandm…     

Effective elastic moduli of triangular lattice material with defects

This paper presents an attempt to extend homogenization analysis for the effective elastic moduli of triangular lattice materials with microstructural defects. The proposed homogenization method adopts a process based on homogeneous strain boundary conditions, the micro-scale constitutive law and the micro-to-macro static operator to establish the relationship between the macroscopic properties of a given lattice material to its micro-discrete behaviors and structures. Further, the idea behind Eshelby’s equivalent eigenstrain principle is introduced to replace a defect distribution by an imagining displacement field (eigendisplacement) with the equivalent mechanical effect, and the triangular lattice Green's function technique is developed to solve the eigendisplacement field. The proposed method therefore allows handling of different types of microstructural defects as well as its arbitrary spatial distribution within a general and compact framework. Analytical closed-form estimations are derived, in the case of the dilute limit, for all the effective elastic moduli of stretch-dominated triangular lattices containing fractured cell walls and missing cells, respectively. Comparison with numerical results, the Hashin–Shtrikman upper bounds and uniform strain upper bounds are also presented to illustrate the predictive capability of the proposed method for lattice materials. Based on this work, we propose that not only the effective Young’s and shear moduli but also the effective Poisson’s ratio of triangular lattice materials depend on the number density of fractured cell walls and their spatial arrangements.     

Improved bounds for the elastic moduli of perfectly-random composites

New upper and lower bounds are constructed for the elastic moduli of a class of isotropic composites with perfectly-random microgeometries ([1–3]), which improve upon the bounds on the elastic shear modulus given in [1].     

Effective couple-stress continuum model of cellular solids and size effects analysis

The purpose of this paper is to develop a homogeneous, orthotropic couple-stress continuum model to take the place of the periodic heterogeneous cellular solids. Through generalizing the definition of the characteristic length for isotropic couple-stress continuum, four characteristic lengths are introduced as material engineering constants for such kind of continuum. In order to determine the effective moduli and the characteristic lengths of the effective couple-stress continuum, a Representative Volume Element (RVE) method is constructed. The effective properties are obtained based on the response of the RVE under prescribed boundary conditions, and our results agree with the analytical solutions in literature. In addition, the influences of the relative density, the topology, the size, and the properties of the solid material of cellular materials on the effective moduli as well as the characteristic lengths are discussed, respectively. Furthermore, the size effects in cellular solid beams are investigated using our effective couple-stress continuum model. The results show that the developed continuum model in this paper can precisely capture the size effects in cellular solids.     

Static, stability and dynamic analysis of gradient elastic flexural Kirchhoff plates

The governing equation of motion of gradient elastic flexural Kirchhoff plates, including the effect of in-plane constant forces on bending, is explicitly derived. This is accomplished by appropriately combining the equations of flexural motion in terms of moments, shear and in-plane forces, the moment–stress relations and the stress–strain equations of a simple strain gradient elastic theory with just one constant (the internal length squared), in addition to the two classical elastic moduli. The resulting partial differential equation in terms of the lateral deflection of the plate is of the sixth order instead of the fourth, which is the case for the classical elastic case. Three boundary value problems dealing with static, stability and dynamic analysis of a rectangular simply supported all-around gradient elastic flexural plate are solved analytically. Non-classical boundary conditions, in additional to the classical ones, have to be utilized. An assessment of the effect of the gradient coefficient on the static or dynamic response of the plate, its buckling load and natural frequencies is also made by comparing the gradient type of solutions against the classical ones.     

Extension of the static shakedown theorems to softening materials

A generalization of the static shakedown theorems for elastic plastic hardening solids with isotropic [Mech. Res. Commun. 29 (2002) 159] and anisotropic [Acta Mechanica, 2004] damage accounting for the possibility of material softening is proposed.     

Mindlin second-gradient elastic properties from dilute two-phase Cauchy-elastic composites. Part I: Closed form expression for the effective higher-order constitutive tensor

It is shown that second-order homogenization of a Cauchy-elastic dilute suspension of randomly distributed inclusions yields an equivalent second gradient (Mindlin) elastic material. This result is valid for both plane and three-dimensional problems and extends earlier findings by Bigoni and Drugan [Bigoni, D., Drugan, W.J., 2007. Analytical derivation of Cosserat moduli via homogenization of heterogeneous elastic materials. J. Appl. Mech. 74, 741–753] from several points of view: (i) the result holds for anisotropic phases with spherical or circular ellipsoid of inertia; (ii) the displacement boundary conditions considered in the homogenization procedure is independent of the characteristics of the material; (iii) a perfect energy match is found between heterogeneous and equivalent materials (instead of an optimal bound). The constitutive higher-order tensor defining the equivalent Mindlin solid is given in a surprisingly simple formula. Applications, treatment of material symmetries and positive definiteness of the effective higher-order constitutive tensor are deferred to Part II of the present article.