scholarly journals Influence of morphology on the effective hygro-elastic properties of softwood (spruce) and hardwood (balsa)

Author(s):  
M. A. Livani ◽  
E. Bosco ◽  
A. S. J. Suiker

AbstractWood materials are characterized by complex, hierarchical material structures spanning across various length scales. The present work aims at establishing a relation between the hygro-elastic properties at the mesoscopic cellular level and the effective material response at the macroscopic level, both for softwood (spruce) and hardwood (balsa). The particular aim is to explore the influence on the effective hygro-elastic properties under variations in the meso-scale morphology. The multi-scale framework applied for this purpose uses the method of asymptotic homogenization, which allows to accurately and efficiently obtain the effective response of heterogeneous materials characterized by complex meso-structural geometries. The meso-structural model considered for softwood is based on a periodic, two-dimensional statistically representative volume element that is generated by a spatial repetition of tracheid cells. The tracheid cells are modeled as hexagonal elements characterized by a certain geometrical irregularity. The hardwood meso-structure consists of a region composed of hexagonal cellular fibers with large vessels embedded, which is connected to a ray region that is constructed of ray cells. The hardwood fibers are modeled as hexagonal cellular elements, similar to softwood tracheids. The rays are represented by quadrilateral cells oriented along the radial direction, whereby different arrangements are considered, i.e., the ray cells are either regularly stacked or organized as a staggered configuration. The interface between the fiber and ray regions may also be characterized by a regular or a staggered arrangement. The meso-structural models for softwood and hardwood are discretized by means of plane-strain, finite element models, which describe the hygro-elastic response of the wood material in the radial–tangential plane. For softwood, the sensitivity of the effective elastic and hygro-expansive properties is explored as a function of the geometrical irregularity of the tracheids. For hardwood, the effective properties are studied under a variation of the ray cell arrangement, the type of interface between ray and fiber regions, and the vessel volume fraction. The modeling results agree well with results obtained from other numerical homogenization studies and show to be in reasonable agreement with experimental data taken from the literature.

Nanomaterials ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Masoud Mohammadi ◽  
Mohammad Arefi ◽  
Rossana Dimitri ◽  
Francesco Tornabene

This study analyses the two-dimensional thermo-elastic response of functionally graded carbon nanotube-reinforced composite (FG-CNTRC) cylindrical pressure vessels, by applying the third-order shear deformation theory (TSDT). The effective properties of FG-CNTRC cylindrical pressure vessels are computed for different patterns of reinforcement, according to the rule of mixture. The governing equations of the problem are derived from the principle of virtual works and are solved as a classical eigenproblem under the assumption of clamped supported boundary conditions. A large parametric investigation aims at showing the influence of some meaningful parameters on the thermo-elastic response, such as the type of pattern, the volume fraction of CNTs, and the Pasternak coefficients related to the elastic foundation.


2013 ◽  
Vol 81 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chetan Shivaputra Jarali ◽  
Somaraddi R. Basavaraddi ◽  
Björn Kiefer ◽  
Sharanabasava C. Pilli ◽  
Y. Charles Lu

In the present study, the effective elastic properties of multifunctional carbon nanotube composites are derived due to the agglomeration of straight circular carbon nanotubes dispersed in soft polymer matrices. The agglomeration of CNTs is common due to the size of nanotubes, which is at nanoscales. Furthermore, it has been proved that straight circular CNTs provide higher stiffness and elastic properties than any other shape of the nanofibers. Therefore, in the present study, the agglomeration effect on the effective elastic moduli of the CNT polymer nanocomposites is investigated when circular CNTs are aligned straight as well as distributed randomly in the matrix. The Mori–Tanaka micromechanics theory is adopted to newly derive the expressions for the effective elastic moduli of the CNT composites including the effect of agglomeration. In this direction, analytical expressions are developed to establish the volume fraction relationships for the agglomeration regions with high, and dilute CNT concentrations. The volume of the matrix in which there may not be any CNTs due to agglomeration is also included in the present formulation. The agglomeration volume fractions are subsequently adopted to develop the effective relations of the composites for transverse isotropy and isotropic straight CNTs. The validation of the modeling technique is assessed with results reported, and the variations in the effective properties for high and dilute agglomeration concentrations are investigated.


Polymers ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 2990 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuai Zhou ◽  
Yue Jia ◽  
Chong Wang

Cementitious composites with microencapsulated healing agents are appealing due to the advantages of self-healing. The polymeric shell and polymeric healing agents in microcapsules have been proven effective in self-healing, while these microcapsules decrease the effective elastic properties of cementitious composites before self-healing happens. The reduction of effective elastic properties can be evaluated by micromechanics. The substantial complicacy included in micromechanical models leads to the need of specifying a large number of parameters and inputs. Meanwhile, there are nonlinearities in input–output relationships. Hence, it is a prerequisite to know the sensitivity of the models. A micromechanical model which can evaluate the effective properties of the microcapsule-contained cementitious material is proposed. Subsequently, a quantitative global sensitivity analysis technique, the Extended Fourier Amplitude Sensitivity Test (EFAST), is applied to identify which parameters are required for knowledge improvement to achieve the desired level of confidence in the results. Sensitivity indices for first-order effects are computed. Results show the volume fraction of microcapsules is the most important factor which influences the effective properties of self-healing cementitious composites before self-healing. The influence of interfacial properties cannot be neglected. The research sheds new light on the influence of parameters on microcapsule-contained self-healing composites.


Author(s):  
Satyajit Panda

The present work deals with the design of a fiber-reinforced composite lamina with varying fiber-volume fraction (FVF) along its thickness direction. In the available elastic analyses of this kind of composite, the elastic properties are evaluated based on the assumptions like continuous variation of FVF and existence of decoupled representative volume element (RVE) at every point along the thickness direction. In order to predict the graded material properties without any of these assumptions at present, first a micro-structure of similar graded composite is designed for the variation of FVF according to a sigmoid function of thickness coordinate. Next, a continuum micro-mechanics finite element model of the corresponding representative volume (RV) is derived. The RV is basically composed of several micro-volumes of different FVFs and the classical homogenization treatment is implemented over these micro-volumes without decoupling them from the overall volume of RV. The importance of this coupled analysis is verified through a parallel decoupled analysis. The effect of the total number of micro-volumes within a specified thickness of lamina on its graded elastic properties is presented. The characteristics of graded elastic properties according to the sigmoid function are also discussed.


2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (10) ◽  
pp. 1439-1448
Author(s):  
Shuang Li ◽  
Lianhe Li

AbstractThe explicit expression of Eshelby tensors for one-dimensional (1D) hexagonal quasicrystal composites is presented by using Green’s function method. The closed forms of Eshelby tensors in the special cases of spheroid, elliptic cylinder, ribbon-like, penny-shaped, and rod-shaped inclusions embedded in 1D hexagonal quasicrystal matrices are given. As an application of Eshelby tensors, the analytical expressions for the effective properties of the 1D hexagonal quasicrystal composites are derived based on the Mori-Tanaka method. The effects of the volume fraction of the inclusion on the elastic properties of the composite materials are discussed.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jyotikalpa Bora ◽  
Sushen Kirtania

Abstract A comparative study of elastic properties and mode I fracture energy has been presented between conventional carbon fibre (CF)/epoxy and advanced carbon nanotube (CNT)/epoxy laminated composite materials. The volume fraction of CNT fibres has been considered as 15%, 30%, and 60% whereas; the volume fraction of CF has been kept constant at 60%. Three stacking sequences of the laminates viz.[0/0/0/0], [0/90/0/90] and [0/30/–30/90] have been considered in the present analysis. Periodic microstructure model has been used to calculate the elastic properties of the laminated composites. It has been observed analytically that the addition of only 15% CNT in epoxy will give almost the same value of longitudinal Young’s modulus as compared to the addition of 60% CF in epoxy. Finite element (FE) analysis of double cantilever beam specimens made from laminated composite has also been performed. It has been observed from FE analysis that the addition of 15% CNT in epoxy will also give almost the same value of mode I fracture energy as compared to the addition of 60% CF in epoxy. The value of mode I fracture energy for [0/0/0/0] laminated composite is two times higher than the other two types of laminated composites.


2015 ◽  
Vol 08 (05) ◽  
pp. 1550049 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vitaly Yu. Topolov ◽  
Christopher R. Bowen ◽  
Paolo Bisegna ◽  
Anatoly E. Panich

The influence of the aspect ratio and volume fraction of ferroelectric ceramic inclusions in a 0–3 matrix on the hydrostatic parameters of a three-component 1–3-type composite is studied to demonstrate the important role of the elastic properties of the two-component matrix on the composite performance. Differences in the elastic properties of the 0–3 matrix and single-crystal rods lead to a considerable dependence of the hydrostatic response of the composite on the anisotropy of the matrix elastic properties. The performance of a 1–0–3 0.92 Pb ( Zn 1/3 Nb 2/3) O 3–0.08 PbTiO 3 SC/modified PbTiO 3 ceramic/polyurethane composite suggests that this composite system is of interest for hydroacoustic applications due to its high hydrostatic piezoelectric coefficients [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text], squared figure of merit [Formula: see text], and electromechanical coupling factor [Formula: see text].


2021 ◽  
pp. 251659842110388
Author(s):  
Ankit Rathi ◽  
S. I. Kundalwal

In this study, the tensile properties of two-phase and three-phase graphene/ZrO2-hybrid poly (methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) nanocomposites are investigated by developing finite element model using ANSYS. Primarily, the effective elastic properties of two- and three-phase graphene/ZrO2-hybrid PMMA nanocomposites (GRPCs) are estimated by developing mechanics of material (MOM) model. Results indicated that the effective elastic properties of GRPCs increase with an increase in the volume fraction of graphene. Also, the stiffness of GRPCs is increased by 78.12% with increasing in the volume fraction of graphene from 0.1 to 0.5 Vf. The incorporation of an additional ZrO2 interphase significantly improved the mechanical performance of resulting GRPCs.


MRS Advances ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (37) ◽  
pp. 2159-2168
Author(s):  
Rehema Ndeda ◽  
S. E. M Sebusang ◽  
R. Marumo ◽  
Erich O. Ogur

ABSTRACTMacroscopic strength of the rock depends on the behavior of the micro constituents, that is, the minerals, pores and crack profile. It is important to determine the effect of these constituents on the overall behavior of the rock. This study seeks to estimate the effective elastic properties of granite using the finite element method. A representative volume element (RVE) of suitable size with spherical inclusions of different distribution is subjected to loading and the effective elastic properties determined. The results are compared to those obtained from analytical methods. The elastic properties are obtained in both the axial and transverse direction to account for anisotropy. It is observed that there is congruence in the results obtained both analytically and numerically. The method of periodic microstructures exhibits close agreement with the numerical results.


Author(s):  
Rajesh S. Kumar

Abstract Initial mechanical behavior of Ceramic Matrix Composites (CMCs) is linear until the proportional limit. This initial behavior is characterized by linear elastic properties, which are anisotropic due to the orientation and arrangement of fibers in the matrix. The linear elastic properties are needed during various phases of analysis and design of CMC components. CMCs are typically made with ceramic unidirectional or woven fiber preforms embedded in a ceramic matrix formed via various processing routes. The matrix processing of interest in this work is that formed via Polymer Impregnation and Pyrolysis (PIP). As this process involves pyrolysis process to convert a pre-ceramic polymer into ceramic, considerable volume shrinkage occurs in the material. This volume shrinkage leads to significant defects in the final material in the forms of porosity of various size, shape, and volume fraction. These defect structures can have a significant impact on the elastic and damage response of the material. In this paper, we develop a new micromechanics modeling framework to study the effects of processing-induced defects on linear elastic response of a PIP-derived CMC. A combination of analytical and computational micromechanics approaches is used to derive the overall elastic tensor of the CMC as a function of the underlying constituents and/or defect structures. It is shown that the volume fraction and aspect ratio of porosity at various length-scales plays an important role in accurate prediction of the elastic tensor. Specifically, it is shown that the through-thickness elastic tensor components cannot be predicted accurately using the micromechanics models unless the effects of defects are considered.


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