Multiscale micromechanical modeling of the constitutive response of carbon nanotube-reinforced structural adhesives

Appropriate formulations are developed to allow for the atomistic-based continuum modeling of nano-reinforced structural adhesives on the basis of a nanoscale representative volume element that accounts for the nonlinear behavior of its constituents; namely, the reinforcing carbon nanotube, the surrounding adhesive and their interface. The newly developed representative volume element is then used with analytical and computational micromechanical modeling techniques to investigate the homogeneous dispersion of the reinforcing element into the adhesive upon both the linear and nonlinear properties. Unlike our earlier work where the focus was on developing linear micromechanical models for the effective elastic properties of nanocomposites, the present approach extends these models by describing the development of a nonlinear hybrid Monte Carlo Finite Element model that allows for the prediction of the full constitutive response of the bulk composite under large deformations. The results indicate a substantial improvement in both the Young’s modulus and tensile strength of the nano-reinforced adhesives for the range of CNT concentrations considered.     

Extracting inter-particle forces in opaque granular materials: Beyond photoelasticity

This paper presents the first example of inter-particle force inference in real granular materials using an improved version of the methodology known as the Granular Element Method (GEM). GEM combines experimental imaging techniques with equations governing particle behavior to allow force inference in cohesionless materials with grains of arbitrary shape, texture, and opacity. This novel capability serves as a useful tool for experimentally characterizing granular materials, and provides a new means for investigating force networks. In addition to an experimental example, this paper presents a precise mathematical formulation of the inverse problem involving the governing equations and illustrates solution strategies.     

Stiffness contribution of cellulose nanofibrils to composite materials

Nanocomposites, reinforced by different types of cellulose fibrils, have gained increased interest the last years due to the promising mechanical properties. There is a lack of knowledge about the mechanical properties of the cellulose fibrils, and their contribution to the often claimed potential of the impressive mechanical performance of the nanocomposites. This paper investigates the contribution from different types of cellulose nanofibril to the overall elastic properties of composites. A multiscale model is proposed, that allows back-calculation of the elastic properties of the fibril from the macroscopic elastic properties of the composites. The different types of fibrils used were nanofibrillated cellulose from wood, bacterial cellulose nano-whiskers and microcrystalline cellulose. Based on the overall properties of the composite with an unaged polylactide matrix, the effective longitudinal Young’s modulus of the fibrils was estimated to 65 GPa for the nanofibrillated cellulose, 61 GPa for the nano whiskers and only 38 GPa for the microcrystalline cellulose. The ranking and absolute values are in accordance with other studies on nanoscale morphology and stiffness estimates. Electron microscopy revealed that in the melt-processed cellulose nanofibril reinforced thermoplastics, the fibrils tended to agglomerate and form micrometer scale platelets, effectively forming a microcomposite and not a nanocomposite. This dispersion effect has to be addressed when developing models describing the structure–property relations for cellulose nanofibril composites.     

Nonlinear shear behavior and interlaminar shear strength of unidirectional polymer matrix composites: A numerical study

Detailed finite element implementation is presented for a recently developed technique (He et al., 2012) to characterize nonlinear shear stress–strain response and interlaminar shear strength based on short-beam shear test of unidirectional polymeric composites. The material characterization couples iterative three-dimensional finite element modeling for stress calculation with digital image correlation for strain evaluation. Extensive numerical experiments were conducted to examine the dependence of the measured shear behavior on specimen and test configurations. The numerical results demonstrate that consistent results can be achieved for specimens with various span-to-thickness ratios, supporting the accurate material properties for the carbon/epoxy composite under study.     

Numerical modeling of deposition-release mechanisms in long-term filtration: validation from experimental data

A numerical phenomenological filtration model based on the combination of existing modeling approaches for simulating the transport of suspended particles in saturated porous medium is presented. The model accounts for the decreased physical straining with the distance from the inlet and the amount of deposited particles in the deposition kinetics. The particle release flux is a function of the local shear stress exerted by the flow on the pore surfaces. The proposed model is validated by interpreting a series of experimental data, realized in a laboratory sand column. The results show that the present model allows simulating the presence of a plateau in the breakthrough curves in the light of the shear stress conditions, and the spatial profile of deposited particles in the porous medium in the light of the straining profile.     

Volumic method for the variational sum of a 2D discrete model

The geometric complexity of some heterogeneous materials (for example, fibers distributed randomly or deterministically with high conductivity [5], [2]) can make it difficult to model their macroscopic behavior. In some cases, it is convenient to simplify the geometry by cutting it into “simple” elements, so that the first study is performed only on these items. The difficulties arise from the reconstruction of the material. In such study, we describe a method for reconstructing a material cut into thin plates having undergone a size reduction (see [6] and [5], for example). The method used is of variational summation limit.     

A stability condition for turbulence model： From EMMS model to EMMS-based turbulence model

The closure problem of turbulence is still a challenging issue in turbulence modeling. In this work, a stability condition is used to close turbulence. Specifically, we regard single-phase flow as a mixture of turbulent and non-turbulent fluids, separating the structure of turbulence. Subsequently, according to the picture of the turbulent eddy cascade, the energy contained in turbulent flow is decomposed into different parts and then quantified. A turbulence stability condition, similar to the principle of the energy-minimization multi-scale （EMMS） model for gas-solid systems, is formulated to close the dynamic constraint equa- tions of turbulence, allowing the inhomogeneous structural parameters of turbulence to be optimized. We name this model as the ＂EMMS-based turbulence model＂, and use it to construct the corresponding turbulent viscosity coefficient. To validate the EMMS-based turbulence model, it is used to simulate two classical benchmark problems, lid-driven cavity flow and turbulent flow with forced convection in an empty room, The numerical results show that the EMMS-hased turbulence model improves the accuracy of turbulence modeling due to it considers the principle of compromise in competition between viscosity and inertia.     

Two and three dimensional modeling of fluidized bed with multiple jets in a DEM–CFD framework

Fluidized beds with multiple jets have widespread industrial applications. The objective of this paper is to investigate the jet interactions and hydrodynamics of a fluidized bed with multiple jets. Discrete element modeling coupled with in-house CFD code GenIDLEST has been used to simulate a bed with nine jets. The results are compared with published experiments. Mono dispersed particles of size 550 μm are used with 1.4 times the minimum fluidization velocity of the particles. Both two and three dimensional computations have been performed. To the best of our knowledge, the results presented in this paper are the first full 3D simulations of a fluidized bed performed with multiple jets. Discrepancies between the experiment and simulations are discussed in the context of the dimensionality of the simulations. The 2D solid fraction profile compares well with the experiment close to the distributor plate. At higher heights, the 2D simulation over-predicts the solid fraction profiles near the walls. The 3D simulation on the other hand is better able to capture the solid fraction profile higher up in the bed compared to that near the distributor plate. Similarly, the normalized particle velocities and the particle fluxes compare well with the experiment closer to the distributor plate for the 2D simulation and the freeboard for the 3D simulation, respectively. A lower expanded bed height is predicted in the 2D simulation compared to the 3D simulation and the experiment. The results obtained from DEM computations show that a 2D simulation can be used to capture essential jetting trends near the distributor plate regions, whereas a full scale 3D simulation is needed to capture the bubbles near the freeboard regions. These serve as validations for the experiment and help us understand the complex jet interaction and solid circulation patterns in a multiple jet fluidized bed system.     

Stochastic modeling for starting-time of phase evolution of random seismic ground motions

In response to the challenge inherent in classical high-dimensional models of random ground motions, a family of simulation methods for non-stationary seismic ground motions was developed previously through employing a wave-group propagation formulation with phase spectrum model built up on the frequency components' starting-time of phase evolution. The present paper aims at extending the formulation to the simulation of non-stationary random seismic ground motions. The ground motion records associated with N—S component of Northridge Earthquake at the type-II site are investigated. The frequency components' starting-time of phase evolution of is identified from the ground motion records, and is proved to admit the Gamma distribution through data fitting. Numerical results indicate that the simulated random ground motion features zero-mean, non-stationary, and non-Gaussian behaviors, and the phase spectrum model with only a few starting-times of phase evolution could come up with a sound contribution to the simulation.