Novel implementation of homogenization method to predict effective properties of periodic materials

Representative volume element (RVE) method and asymptotic homogenization (AH) method are two widely used methods in predicting effective properties of periodic materials. This paper develops a novel implementation of the AH method, which has rigorous mathematical foundation of the AH method, and also simplicity as the RVE method. This implementation can be easily realized using commercial software as a black box, and can use all kinds of elements available in commercial software to model unit cells with rather complicated microstructures, so the model may remain a fairly small scale. Several examples were carried out to demonstrate the simplicity and effectiveness of the new implementation.     

PLASTIC LIMIT ANALYSIS OF DUCTILE COMPOSITE STRUCTURES FROM MICRO-TO MACRO-MECHANICAL ANALYSIS

The load-bearing capacity of ductile composite structures comprised of periodic composites is studied by a combined micro/macromechanicai approach. Firstly, on the microscopic level, a representative volume element （RVE） is selected to reflect the microstructures of the composite materials and the constituents are assumed to be elastic perfectly-plastic. Based on the homogenization theory and the static limit theorem, an optimization formulation to directly calculate the macroscopic strength domain of the RVE is obtained. The finite element modeling of the static limit analysis is formulated as a nonlinear mathematical programming and solved by the sequential quadratic programming method, where the temperature parameter method is used to construct the self-stress field. Secondly, Hill＇s yield criterion is adopted to connect the micromechanicai and macromechanical analyses. And the limit loads of composite structures are worked out on the macroscopic scale. Finally, some examples and comparisons are shown.     

Extended multiscale finite element method for mechanical analysis of heterogeneous materials

An extended multiscale finite element method （EMsFEM） is developed for solving the mechanical problems of heterogeneous materials in elasticity.The underlying idea of the method is to construct numerically the multiscale base functions to capture the small-scale features of the coarse elements in the multiscale finite element analysis.On the basis of our existing work for periodic truss materials, the construction methods of the base functions for continuum heterogeneous materials are systematically introduced. Numerical experiments show that the choice of boundary conditions for the construction of the base functions has a big influence on the accuracy of the multiscale solutions, thus,different kinds of boundary conditions are proposed. The efficiency and accuracy of the developed method are validated and the results with different boundary conditions are verified through extensive numerical examples with both periodic and random heterogeneous micro-structures.Also, a consistency test of the method is performed numerically. The results show that the EMsFEM can effectively obtain the macro response of the heterogeneous structures as well as the response in micro-scale,especially under the periodic boundary conditions.     

Assessing mixing characteristics of particle-mixing and granulation devices

The mixing of particulates such as powders is an important process in many industries including pharmaceuticals, plastics, household products （such as detergents） and food processing. The quality of products depends on the degree of mixing of their constituent materials which in turn depends on both geometric design and operating conditions. Unfortunately, due to lack of understanding of the interaction between mixer geometry and the granular material, limited progress has been made in optimizing mixer design. The discrete element method （DEM） is a computational technique that allows particle systems to be simulated and mixing to be predicted. Simulation is an effective way of acquiring information on the performance of different mixers that is difficult and/or expensive to obtain using traditional experimental approaches. Here we demonstrate how DEM can be used to unravel flow dynamics and assess mixing in several different types of devices. These devices used for mixing and/or granulation of particulates, are classified broadly as gravity controlled, bladed and high shear. We also explore the role of particle shape in mixing performance and use DEM to test whether Froude number scaling is suitable for predicting scale performance of rotating mixers.     

Self-adaptive one-dimensional nonlinear finite element method based on element energy projection method

The element energy projection （EEP） method for computation of super- convergent resulting in a one-dimensional finite element method （FEM） is successfully used to self-adaptive FEM analysis of various linear problems, based on which this paper presents a substantial extension of the whole set of technology to nonlinear problems. The main idea behind the technology transfer from linear analysis to nonlinear analysis is to use Newton＇s method to linearize nonlinear problems into a series of linear problems so that the EEP formulation and the corresponding adaptive strategy can be directly used without the need for specific super-convergence formulation for nonlinear FEM. As a re- sult, a unified and general self-adaptive algorithm for nonlinear FEM analysis is formed. The proposed algorithm is found to be able to produce satisfactory finite element results with accuracy satisfying the user-preset error tolerances by maximum norm anywhere on the mesh. Taking the nonlinear ordinary differential equation （ODE） of second-order as the model problem, this paper describes the related fundamental idea, the imple- mentation strategy, and the computational algorithm. Representative numerical exam- ples are given to show the efficiency, stability, versatility, and reliability of the proposed approach.     

FUNDAMENTAL SOLUTION BASED GRADED ELEMENT MODEL FOR STEADY-STATE HEAT TRANSFER IN FGM

A novel hybrid graded element model is developed in this paper for investigating thermal behavior of functionally graded materials (FGMs). The model can handle a spatially varying material property field of FGMs. In the proposed approach, a new variational functional is first constructed for generating corresponding finite element model. Then, a graded element is formulated based on two sets of independent temperature fields. One is known as intra-element temperature field defined within the element domain; the other is the so-called frame field defined on the element boundary only. The intra-element temperature field is constructed using the linear combination of fundamental solutions, while the independent frame field is separately used as the boundary interpolation functions of the element to ensure the field continuity over the interelement boundary. Due to the properties of fundamental solutions, the domain integrals appearing in the variational functional can be converted into boundary integrals which can significantly simplify the calculation of generalized element stiffness matrix. The proposed model can simulate the graded material properties naturally due to the use of the graded element in the finite element (FE) model. Moreover, it inherits all the advantages of the hybrid Trefftz finite element method (HT-FEM) over the conventional FEM and boundary element method (BEM). Finally, several examples are presented to assess the performance of the proposed method, and the obtained numerical results show a good numerical accuracy.     

Plate/shell structure topology optimization of orthotropic material for buckling problem based on independent continuous topological variables

The purpose of the present work is to study the buckling problem with plate/shell topology optimiza-tion of orthotropic material.A model of buckling topology optimization is established based on the independent,con-tinuous, and mapping method, which considers structural mass as objective and buckling critical loads as constraints. Firstly, composite exponential function (CEF) and power function(PF)as filter functions are introduced to recognize the element mass,the element stiffness matrix,and the ele-ment geometric stiffness matrix.The filter functions of the orthotropic material stiffness are deduced. Then these fil-ter functions are put into buckling topology optimization of a differential equation to analyze the design sensitiv-ity.Furthermore,the buckling constraints are approximately expressed as explicit functions with respect to the design vari-ables based on the first-order Taylor expansion.The objective function is standardized based on the second-order Taylor expansion. Therefore,the optimization model is translated into a quadratic program.Finally,the dual sequence quadratic programming(DSQP)algorithm and the global convergence method of moving asymptotes algorithm with two different filter functions(CEF and PF)are applied to solve the opti-mal model.Three numerical results show that DSQP&CEF has the best performance in the view of structural mass and discretion.     

DISCRETE AND CONTINUUM MODELLING OF GRANULAR FLOW

This paper analyses three popular methods simulating granular flow at different time and length scales： discrete element method （DEM）, averaging method and viscous, elastic-plastic continuum model. The theoretical models of these methods and their applications to hopper flows are discussed. It is shown that DEM is an effective method to study the fundamentals of granular flow at a particle or microscopic scale. By use of the continuum approach, granular flow can also be described at a continuum or macroscopic scale. Macroscopic quantities such as velocity and stress can be obtained by use of such computational method as FEM. However, this approach depends on the constitutive relationship of materials and ignores the effect of microscopic structure of granular flow. The combined approach of DEM and averaging method can overcome this problem. The approach takes into account the discrete nature of granular materials and does not require any global assumption and thus allows a better understanding of the fundamental mechanisms of granular flow. However, it is difficult to adapt this approach to process modelling because of the limited number of particles which can be handled with the present computational capacity, and the difficulty in handling non-spherical particles. Further work is needed to develoo an aoorooriate aooroach to overcome these problems.     

New discrete element models for elastoplastic problems

The discrete element method （DEM） has attractive features for problems with severe damages, but lack of theoretical basis for continua behavior especially for nonlinear behavior has seriously restricted its application. The present study proposes a new approach to developing the DEM as a general and robust technique for modeling the elastoplastic behavior of solid materials. New types of connective links between elements are proposed, the interelement parameters are theoretically determined based on the principle of energy equivalence and a yield criterion and a flow rule for DEM are given for describing nonlinear behavior of materials. Moreover, a numerical scheme, which can be applied to modeling the behavior of a continuum as well as the transformation from a continuum to a discontinuum, is obtained by introducing a fracture criterion and a contact model into the DEM. The elastoplastic stress wave propagations and the tensile failure process of a steel plate are simulated, and the numerical results agree well with those obtained from the finite element method （FEM） and corresponding experiment, and thus the accuracy and efficiency of the DEM scheme are demonstrated.     

Novel numerical implementation of asymptotic homogenization method for periodic plate structures

The present paper develops and implements finite element formulation for the asymptotic homogenization theory for periodic composite plate and shell structures, earlier developed in  and , and thus adopts this analytical method for the analysis of periodic inhomogeneous plates and shells with more complicated periodic microstructures. It provides a benchmark test platform for evaluating various methods such as representative volume approaches to calculate effective properties. Furthermore, the new numerical implementation (Cheng et al., 2013) of asymptotic homogenization method of 2D and 3D materials with periodic microstructure is shown to be directly applicable to predict effective properties of periodic plates without any complicated mathematical derivation. The new numerical implementation is based on the rigorous mathematical foundation of the asymptotic homogenization method, and also simplicity similar to the representative volume method. It can be applied easily using commercial software as a black box. Different kinds of elements and modeling techniques available in commercial software can be used to discretize the unit cell. Several numerical examples are given to demonstrate the validity of the proposed methods.     

Material sensitivity analysis in homogenization of linear elastic composites

Summary  The main goal of the paper is to present theoretical aspects and the finite element method (FEM) implementation of the sensitivity analysis in homogenization of composite materials with linear elastic components, using effective modules approach. The deterministic sensitivity analysis of effective material properties is presented in a general form for an n-components periodic composite, and is illustrated by the examples of 1D as well as of 2D heterogeneous structures. The results of the sensitivity analysis presented in the paper confirm the usefulness of the homogenization method in computational analysis of composite materials the method may be applied to computational optimization of engineering composites, to the shape-sensitivity studies and, after some probabilistic extensions, to stochastic sensitivity analysis of random composites. Received 10 November 2000; accepted for publication 24 April 2001     

Limit analysis of composite materials based on an ellipsoid yield criterion

Employing repeating unit cell (RUC) to represent the microstructure of periodic composite materials, this paper develops a numerical technique to calculate the plastic limit loads and failure modes of composites by means of homogenization technique and limit analysis in conjunction with the displacement-based finite element method. With the aid of homogenization theory, the classical kinematic limit theorem is generalized to incorporate the microstructure of composites. Using an associated flow rule, the plastic dissipation power for an ellipsoid yield criterion is expressed in terms of the kinematically admissible velocity. Based on nonlinear mathematical programming techniques, the finite element modelling of kinematic limit analysis is then developed as a nonlinear mathematical programming problem subject to only a small number of equality constraints. The objective function corresponds to the plastic dissipation power which is to be minimized and an upper bound to the limit load of a composite is then obtained. The nonlinear formulation has a very small number of constraints and requires much less computational effort than a linear formulation. An effective, direct iterative algorithm is proposed to solve the resulting nonlinear programming problem. The effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed method have been validated by several numerical examples. The proposed method can provide theoretical foundation and serve as a powerful numerical tool for the engineering design of composite materials.     

An analytical and numerical approach for calculating effective material coefficients of piezoelectric fiber composites

The present work deals with the modeling of 1–3 periodic composites made of piezoceramic (PZT) fibers embedded in a soft non-piezoelectric matrix (polymer). We especially focus on predicting the effective coefficients of periodic transversely isotropic piezoelectric fiber composites using representative volume element method (unit cell method). In this paper the focus is on square arrangements of cylindrical fibers in the composite. Two ways for calculating the effective coefficients are presented, an analytical and a numerical approach. The analytical solution is based on the asymptotic homogenization method (AHM) and for the numerical approach the finite element method (FEM) is used. Special attention is given on definition of appropriate boundary conditions for the unit cell to ensure periodicity. With the two introduced methods the effective coefficients were calculated for different fiber volume fractions. Finally the results are compared and discussed.     

Variational asymptotic method for unit cell homogenization of periodically heterogeneous materials

A new micromechanics model, namely, the variational asymptotic method for unit cell homogenization (VAMUCH), is developed to predict the effective properties of periodically heterogeneous materials and recover the local fields. Considering the periodicity as a small parameter, we can formulate a variational statement of the unit cell through an asymptotic expansion of the energy functional. It is shown that the governing differential equations and periodic boundary conditions of mathematical homogenization theories (MHT) can be reproduced from this variational statement. In comparison to other approaches, VAMUCH does not rely on ad hoc assumptions, has the same rigor as MHT, has a straightforward numerical implementation, and can calculate the complete set of properties simultaneously without using multiple loadings. This theory is implemented using the finite element method and an engineering program, VAMUCH, is developed for micromechanical analysis of unit cells. Many examples of binary composites, fiber reinforced composites, and particle reinforced composites are used to demonstrate the application, power, and accuracy of the theory and the code of VAMUCH.     

复合材料扭转轴截面微结构拓扑优化设计

提出复合材料扭转轴截面微结构拓扑优化设计新模型，模型的优化目标是获得具有最大宏观剪切特性加权和的单胞形式．通过模型和均匀化方法及优化技术可以获得优化的微结构单胞，进而改善或者得到最优宏观弹性特性的复合材料．为了便于制造和应用，胞体材料用来获得复合材料的极值剪切模量．最后的优化结果表明，该模型连同数值处理技巧可以非常有效地实现微结构的拓扑优化设计．     

复合材料周期性线弹性微结构的拓扑优化设计

提出复合材料周期性线弹性微结构拓扑优化设计的模型，模型1设计具有极值弹性特性的复合材料，模型2设计工况最刚微结构单胞。通过该模型和均匀化技术可以获得优化的微结构单胞，进而改善或者得到最优宏观特性的复合材料。为了便于制造和应用，用胞体材料而不是多相材料来得到复合材料的极值弹性特性和最大刚度。优化结果表明，该模型与数值方法相结合可以有效地实现微结构的拓扑优化设计。     

HOMOGENIZATION—BASED TOPOLOGY DESIGN FOR PURE TORSION OF COMPOSITE SHAFTS

In conjunction with the homogenization theory and the finite element method, the mathematical models for designing the corss-section of composite shafts by maximizing the torsion rigidity are developed in this paper. To obtain the extremal torsion rigidity, both the cross-section of the macro scale shaft and the representative microstructure of the composite material are optimized using the new models. The micro scale computational model addresses the problem of finding the periodic microstructures with extreme shear moduli. The optimal microstructure obtained with the new model and the homogenization method can be used to improve and optimize natural or artificial materials. In order to be more practical for engineering applications, cellular materials rather than ranked materials are used in the optimal process in the existence of optimal bounds for the elastic properties. Moreover, the macro scale model is proposed to optimize the cross-section of the torsional shaft based on the tailared composites. The validating optimal results show that the models are very effective in obtaining composites with extreme elastic properties, and the cross-section of the composite shaft with the extremal torsion rigidity. The project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (10172078 and 10102018)     

确定复合材料宏观屈服准则的细观力学方法

运用细观力学中的均匀化方法，分析了含周期性微结构复合材料的宏观屈服准则，并对Hill-Tsai准则进行了修正。从基于复合材料细观结构的代表性胞元入手，运用塑性极限理论中的机动分析以及有限元方法，计算了细观结构的极限载荷域。通过宏细观尺度对应关系，得到复合材料的宏观屈服准则。