Implicit boundary method for determination of effective properties of composite microstructures

A method that uses a structured grid to perform micromechanical analysis for determining effective properties of a composite microstructure is presented. This approach eliminates the need for constructing a mesh that has nodes along the interfaces between constituent materials of the composite. Implicit boundary method is used to ensure that interface conditions are satisfied at the material boundaries. In this method, solution structures for test and trial functions are constructed using approximate step functions such that the interface conditions are satisfied, even if there are no nodes on the material interface boundary. Since a structured grid does not conform to the geometry of the analysis domain, the geometry of the microstructure is defined independently using equations of the interface boundary curves/surfaces. Structured grids that overlap the geometry are easy to generate, and the elements in the grid are regular shaped and undistorted. A numerical example is presented to demonstrate that the proposed solution structure accurately models the solution across material interface, and convergence analysis is performed to show that the method converges as the grid density is increased. Fiber reinforced microstructures are analyzed to compute the effective elastic properties using both 2D and 3D models to show that the results match closely with the ones available in the literature.     

Using strain energy-based prediction of effective elastic properties in topology optimization of material microstructures

An alternative strain energy method is proposed for the prediction of effective elastic properties of orthotropic materials in this paper. The method is implemented in the topology optimization procedure to design cellular solids. A comparative study is made between the strain energy method and the well-known homogenization method. Numerical results show that both methods agree well in the numerical prediction and sensitivity analysis of effective elastic tensor when homogeneous boundary conditions are properly specified. Two dimensional and three dimensional microstructures are optimized for maximum stiffness designs by combining the proposed method with the dual optimization algorithm of convex programming. Satisfactory results are obtained for a variety of design cases. The project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (10372083, 90405016), 973 Program (2006CB601205) and the Aeronautical Science Foundation (04B53080). The English text was polished by Keren Wang.     

Quantitative description and numerical simulation of random microstructures of composites and their effective elastic moduli

A digital image processing technique is used for measurement of centroid coordinates of fibers with forthcoming estimation of statistical parameters and functions describing the stochastic structure of a real fiber composite. Comparative statistical analysis of the real and numerically simulated structure are performed. Accompanying of known methods of the generation of random configurations by the random shaking procedure allows creating of the most homogenized and mixed structures that do not depend on the initial protocol of particle generation. We consider a linearly elastic composite medium, which consists of a homogeneous matrix containing a statistically homogeneous set of ellipsoidal inclusions. The multiparticle effective field method (see for references, Buryachenko, Appl. Mech. Rev., (2001a), 54, 1–47) based on the theory of functions of random variables and Green’s functions is used for demonstration of the dependence of effective elastic moduli of fiber composites on the radial distribution functions estimated from the real experimental data as well as from the ensembles generated by the method proposed.     

Prediction of elastic properties of heterogeneous materials with complex microstructures

The phase-field microelasticity (PFM) is adapted into a homogenization process to predict all the effective elastic constants of three-dimensional heterogeneous materials with complex microstructures. Comparison between the PFM approach and the Hashin-Shtrikman variational approach is also given. Using 3D images of two-phase heterogeneous media with regular and irregular microstructures, results indicate that the PFM approach can accurately take into account the effects of both elastic anisotropy and inhomogeneity of materials with arbitrary microstructure geometry, such as complex porous media with suspended inclusions.     

Virtual improvement of ice cream properties by computational homogenization of microstructures

Optimal shape design of microstructured materials has recently attracted a great deal of attention in materials science. The shape and the topology of the microstructure have a significant impact on the macroscopic properties. This paper presents different computational models of random microstructures, to virtually improve the physical properties of ice cream. Several sensory properties of this heterogeneous material issued from food industry are directly controlled by the elastic and thermal conducting ones. The material effective elastic and thermal conducting properties are obtained through direct large scale numerical simulations. The different formulations address the problem of finding the shape of the representative microstructural element for random heterogeneous media that increase the elastic moduli and thermal conductivity compared to existing products. The computational models are established using finite element method and images of virtual microstructures. In this paper we propose a new model of microstructures. This model is constructed with hexagonal prismatic rods and plates with volume fractions around 0.7 for the hard phase represented by hexagons of ice. A comparison between three two-phase elastic heterogeneous microstructures models is drawn. This illustrates the concept of design of microstructures using computational homogenization tools.     

On evolving deformation microstructures in non-convex partially damaged solids

The paper outlines a relaxation method based on a particular isotropic microstructure evolution and applies it to the model problem of rate independent, partially damaged solids. The method uses an incremental variational formulation for standard dissipative materials. In an incremental setting at finite time steps, the formulation defines a quasi-hyperelastic stress potential. The existence of this potential allows a typical incremental boundary value problem of damage mechanics to be expressed in terms of a principle of minimum incremental work. Mathematical existence theorems of minimizers then induce a definition of the material stability in terms of the sequential weak lower semicontinuity of the incremental functional. As a consequence, the incremental material stability of standard dissipative solids may be defined in terms of weak convexity notions of the stress potential. Furthermore, the variational setting opens up the possibility to analyze the development of deformation microstructures in the post-critical range of unstable inelastic materials based on energy relaxation methods. In partially damaged solids, accumulated damage may yield non-convex stress potentials which indicate instability and formation of fine-scale microstructures. These microstructures can be resolved by use of relaxation techniques associated with the construction of convex hulls. We propose a particular relaxation method for partially damaged solids and investigate it in one- and multi-dimensional settings. To this end, we introduce a new isotropic microstructure which provides a simple approximation of the multi-dimensional rank-one convex hull. The development of those isotropic microstructures is investigated for homogeneous and inhomogeneous numerical simulations.     

On thermoelastostatics of composites with nonlocal properties of constituents II. Estimation of effective material and field parameters

One considers a linear thermoelastic composite medium, which consists of a homogeneous matrix containing a statistically homogeneous random set of ellipsoidal uncoated or coated heterogeneities. It is assumed that the stress–strain constitutive relations of constituents are described by the nonlocal integral operators, whereas the equilibrium and compatibility equations remain unaltered as in classical local elasticity. The general integral equations connecting the stress and strain fields in the point being considered and the surrounding points are obtained. The method is based on a centering procedure of subtraction from both sides of a known initial integral equation their statistical averages obtained without any auxiliary assumptions such as, e.g., effective field hypothesis implicitly exploited in the known centering methods. In a simplified case of using of the effective field hypothesis for analyzing composites with one sort of heterogeneities, one proves that the effective moduli explicitly depend on both the strain and stress concentrator factor for one heterogeneity inside the infinite matrix and does not directly depend on the elastic properties (local or nonlocal) of heterogeneities. In such a case, the Levin’s (1967) formula in micromechanics of composites with locally elastic constituents is generalized to their nonlocal counterpart. A solution of a volume integral equation for one heterogeneity subjected to inhomogeneous remote loading inside an infinite matrix is proposed by the iteration method. The operator representation of this solution is incorporated into the new general integral equation of micromechanics without exploiting of basic hypotheses of classical micromechanics such as both the effective field hypothesis and “ellipsoidal symmetry” assumption. Quantitative estimations of results obtained by the abandonment of the effective field hypothesis are presented.     

The effective thermoelectroelastic properties of microinhomogeneous materials

The paper is concerned with composite materials which consist of a homogeneous matrix phase with a set of inclusions uniformly distributed in the matrix. The components of these materials are considered to be ideally elastic and exhibit piezoelectric properties. One of the variants of the self-consistent scheme, the Effective Field Method (EFM) is applied to calculate effective dielectric, piezoelectric and thermoelastic properties of such materials, taking into account the coupled electroelastic effects. At first the coupled thermoelectroelastic problem for a homogeneous medium with an isolated inclusion is solved. For an ellipsoidal inclusion and constant external field the solution of this problem is found in a closed analytic form. This solution is then used in the EFM to derive the effective thermoelectroelastic operator for the composite containing a random array of ellipsoidal inclusions. Explicit formulae for the electrothermoelastic constants are given for composites, reinforced by spheroidal inclusions.     

The effective properties of piezocomposites, part II: The effective electroelastic moduli

Since piezoelectric ceramic/polymer composites have been widely used as smart materials and smart structures, it is more and more important to obtain the closed-from solutions of the effective properties of piezocomposites with piezoelectric ellipsoidal inclusions. Based on the closed-from solutions of the electroelastic Eshelby's tensors obtained in the part I of this paper and the generalized Budiansky's energy-equivalence framework, the closed-form general relations of effective electroelastic moduli of the piezocomposites with piezoelectric ellipsoidal inclusions are given. The relations can be applicable for several micromechanics models, such as the dilute solution and the Mori-Tanaka's method. The difference among the various models is shown to be the way in which the average strain and the average electric field of the inclusion phase are evaluated. Comparison between predicted and experimental results shows that the theoretical values in this paper agree quite well with the experimental results. These expression can be readily utilized in analysis and design of piezocomposites. The project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China     

On thermoelastostatics of composites with nonlocal properties of constituents I. General representations for effective material and field parameters

A theory of thermoelastic composites with nonlocal properties of constituents is analyzed for multiphase elastic solids of arbitrary geometry and material symmetry. Due to their generality, one uses the nonlocal integral models because the gradient models are usually derived as approximations of corresponding integral models in the immediate (infinitely closed) vicinity of the point being considered. One explores a simplified theory for linear (macroscopically) elasticity, which differs from the classical local theory in the stress–strain constitutive relation only, whereas the equilibrium and compatibility equations remain unaltered. One obtains the new representation of the effective modulus and compliance through the mechanical influence function which does not explicitly depend (as opposed to its local counterpart) on the elastic operators of constituents. The representations for the effective eigenstrains and eigenstresses through either the mechanical influence functions or transformation influence functions are presented. The effective strain energy and potential energy are expressed in terms of only average values of the state variables and the effective properties. Representations of both the first and second statistical moments of stress and strain fields in the constituents are also performed. Many of the results were obtained as the straightforward generalizations of their local counterparts because the methods used for obtaining the mentioned results widely exploit the Hill’s (1963) condition which holds for any compatible strain field and equilibrium stress field not necessarily related to each other by a specific stress–strain relation.     

石墨烯热学性能及表征技术

2004 年石墨烯的发现立刻引起了全球科技界的高度关注, 掀起了从碳纳米管问世以来对于碳族材料的又一个研究高潮, 人们迅速开展了针对石墨烯的制备、性能表征、甚至应用的研究工作. 从石墨烯问世到目前, 主要研究工作集中在石墨烯电学性能的研究, 特别是集中在用石墨烯制备超级电容器方面. 相比之下, 人们对于石墨烯热学性能的研究还比较少. 然而, 鉴于石墨烯具有极高的热导率和负的热膨胀系数, 以及作为热界面材料的工程应用价值, 对其热学性能的研究正逐渐成为研究的一个重要分支. 以石墨烯热学性能如热导率到热膨胀系数为研究对象, 全面总结国际上的发展现状. 内容涉及单层石墨烯、多层石墨烯和石墨烯泡沫. 研究手段包括理论研究、数值模拟和实验测定3 个方面. 在综合研究成果的基础上, 最后对于存在的问题和可能的发展方向给出了合理的建议.      

The effective properties of composites with fiber-end cracks

The paper describes use of self-consistent finite element method (SCFEM) for predicting effective properties of fiber composite with partially debonded interface. The effective longitudinal Young's modulus and shear modulus for unidirectional fiber reinforced composites with fiber-end cracks are calculated. Numerical results show that the effective properties are considerably influenced by the fiber-end cracks. The effects of microstructural parameters, such as fiber volume fraction, modulus ratio of the constituents and fiber aspect, on the effective properties of the composites were discussed. The project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China     

Antiplane magneto-electro-elastic effective properties of three-phase fiber composites

In the present work, applying the asymptotic homogenization method (AHM), the derivation of the antiplane effective properties for three-phase magneto-electro-elastic fiber unidirectional reinforced composite with parallelogram cell symmetry is reported. Closed analytical expressions for the antiplane local problems on the periodic cell and the corresponding effective coefficients are provided. Matrix and inclusions materials belong to symmetry class 6mm. Numerical results are reported and compared with the eigenfunction expansion-variational method (EEVM) and other theoretical models. Good agreements are found for these comparisons. In addition, with the herein implemented solution, it is possible to reproduce the effective properties of the reduced cases such as piezoelectric or elastic composites obtaining good agreements with previous reports.     

Bounds for the effective properties of heterogeneous plates

This paper presents new bounds for heterogeneous plates which are similar to the well-known Hashin–Shtrikman bounds, but take into account plate boundary conditions. The Hashin–Shtrikman variational principle is used with a self-adjoint Green-operator with traction-free boundary conditions proposed by the authors. This variational formulation enables to derive lower and upper bounds for the effective in-plane and out-of-plane elastic properties of the plate. Two applications of the general theory are considered: first, in-plane invariant polarization fields are used to recover the “first-order” bounds proposed by Kolpakov [Kolpakov, A.G., 1999. Variational principles for stiffnesses of a non-homogeneous plate. J. Meth. Phys. Solids 47, 2075–2092] for general heterogeneous plates; next, “second-order bounds” for n-phase plates whose constituents are statistically homogeneous in the in-plane directions are obtained. The results related to a two-phase material made of elastic isotropic materials are shown. The “second-order” bounds for the plate elastic properties are compared with the plate properties of homogeneous plates made of materials having an elasticity tensor computed from “second-order” Hashin–Shtrikman bounds in an infinite domain.     

Apparent and effective mechanical properties of linear matrix-inclusion random composites: Improved bounds for the effective behavior

This paper is devoted to the derivation of improved bounds for the effective behavior of linear elastic matrix-inclusion composites based on a strategy which is inspired by both the works of Huet, 1990, Danielsson et al., 2007. As shown by the former author, the effective properties of random linear composites can be bounded by ensemble averages of their apparent elastic moduli defined on square (or cubic) volume elements (VEs) and computed with either affine displacement Boundary Conditions (BC) or uniform traction BC. However, in the case of a large contrast of the constituents, the discrepancy between the upper and lower bounds remains significant, even for large values of the VE size. This occurs because the contribution to the total potential (or complementary) energy of the particles (or pores) which intersect the edges of the VE becomes unphysically very large when uniform BC are directly applied to the particles. To avoid such limitations, we considerer non-square (or non-cubic) VEs consisting in simply connex assemblages of cells, each cell being composed of an inclusion surrounded by the matrix, thus forbidding any direct application of BC to the particles. Such VEs are generated by extending the scheme proposed by Danielsson et al. (2007) in the context of periodic random microstructures to fully random microstructures. By applying the classical energy bounding theorems to the non-square VEs, new bounds for the effective behavior are derived. Their application to a two-phase composite composed of an isotropic matrix and aligned identical fibers randomly distributed in the transverse plane leads to sharper bounds which converge quickly with the VE size, even for infinite contrasts.     

On the effect of small fluctuations in the volume fraction of constituents on the effective properties of composites

This study deals with three-scale composite materials comprised of nonlinear constituents. At the meso scale the composite can be considered as locally homogeneous with a macroscopic spatial variation of the constituents volume fraction. When these variations about a mean value are small, a Taylor expansion to second-order of the effective properties of the composite with respect to the fluctuations is given. This expansion can be used to discuss the beneficial or deleterious effects of clusters of inhomogeneities. It can also be used to derive new upper and lower bounds for the effective properties of nonlinear composites from dilute results. To cite this article: P. Suquet, C. R. Mecanique 333 (2005).     

Time dependence of effective properties of polycrystalline ferroelectric ceramics

In this paper, based on Merz[7] experimental results and classical nucleation theory, a micromechanics statistical model is proposed to describe the relation between the special microstructure-level evolution phenomena-domain switching and macro-response. The polycrystalline ferroelectric ceramics treated as a composition of switched domain and unswitched domain, the approaches of Eshelby's equivalent inclusion and Mori-Tanaka's mean field theory are used to analyze and predict its effective electroelastic properties. The model can incorporate the effects of time dependence of domain switching and shape of individual crystalline. To the BaTiO₃ polycrystalline ceramics, the analytical results are in good agreement with the experimental results.     

On the effective viscosity of pseudoplastic suspensions

Summary An expression is developed that predicts the concentration dependence of the apparent viscosity of a concentrated pseudoplastic suspension. The result, which is an extension of the Frankel and Acrivos Newtonian suspension analysis, shows that the influence of particles concentration on the effective viscosity of pseudoplastic suspensions increases as the power law index of the suspension increases. Experimental data shows good agreement with the theoretical predictions.With 8 figures     

Bounds on the non-local effective elastic properties of composites

The paper deals with the effective linear elastic behaviour of random media subjected to inhomogeneous mean fields. The effective constitutive laws are known to be non-local. Therefore, the effective elastic moduli show dispersion, i.e¹ they depend on the “wave vector” k of the mean field. In this paper the well-known Hashin-Shtrikman bounds (1962) for the Lamé parameters of isotropic multi-phase mixtures are generalized to inhomogeneous mean fields k ≠ 0. The bounds involve two-point correlations of random elastic moduli. In the limit k → ∞ the bounds converge to the exact result. The interest is focussed on composites with cell structures and on binary mixtures. To illustrate the results, numerical evaluations are carried out for a binary cell material composed of nearly spherical grains of equal size.