scholarly journals Computational modelling of particulate-reinforced materials up to high volume fractions: Linear elastic homogenisation

Author(s):  
Timothée Gentieu ◽  
Anita Catapano ◽  
Julien Jumel ◽  
James Broughton

This work focuses on the analysis of the micro and macroscopic mechanical response of particle-reinforced composites. A particular attention is paid to the influence of two fundamental design parameters, i.e. the particles shape and their volume fraction (up to very high values ranging from 0 to almost 0.8), on the overall mechanical response of the structure as well as on the resulting elastic symmetry of the material. The strain energy-based homogenisation technique of periodic media is here applied to a 2D finite element model of a representative volume element of the composite. Different algorithms are developed to generate, with a good level of accuracy, the real microstructure of the composite material characterised by circular as well as polygonal particles. Moreover, for each studied configuration, a link between the geometrical parameters of the microstructure (particles shape, size, distribution, and volume fraction) and the size of the representative volume element is also provided in order to properly describe the constitutive behaviour of the composite at the macroscopic scale. The numerical results are compared with analytical models taken from the literature to prove on the one hand the limitations of the analytical approaches and on the other hand the effectiveness of the proposed numerical models.

TAPPI Journal ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (06) ◽  
pp. 329-339 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yujun Li ◽  
Zengzhi Yu ◽  
Stefanie Reese ◽  
Jaan-Willem Simon

Many natural and synthetic materials have fibrous microstructures, including nonwoven fabrics, paper, and fiberboard. Experimentally evaluating their out-of-plane mechanical behavior can be difficult because of the small thickness compared with the in-plane dimension. To properly predict such properties, network-scale models are required to obtain homogenized material mechanics by considering fiber-scale mechanisms. We demonstrate a three-dimensional representative volume element (RVE) for fiber networks using the finite element method. We first adopted the classical deposition procedure to generate fiber networks with random or preferential fiber orientations and then an artificial compression to achieve the practical fiber volume fraction. The hollow fibers, described with elastic-plastic brick elements, were joined by interface-based cohesive zone elements introduced in all fiber-fiber contact areas. Thereafter, the fiber networks were subjected to displacement boundary conditions, and their apparent mechanical response was evaluated by a homogenized stress. To determine the RVE dimension, we further conducted an RVE size convergence study for the out-of-plane compression and tension (varying specimen length while keeping the specimen thickness constant). Finally, we evaluated the apparent out-of-plane response of the obtained RVE for four loading cases: out-of-plane compression, tension, simple shear, and pure shear. The results show a quite different mechanical behavior of fiber networks between all these out-of-plane loading cases, particularly between tension and compression.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Aanchna Sharma ◽  
Yashwant Munde ◽  
Vinod Kushvaha

AbstractIn this study, Representative Volume Element based micromechanical modeling technique has been implemented to assess the mechanical properties of glass filled epoxy composites. Rod shaped glass fillers having an aspect ratio of 80 were used for preparing the epoxy composite. The three-dimensional unit cell model of representative volume element was prepared with finite element analysis tool ANSYS 19 using the periodic square and hexagonal array with an assumption that there is a perfect bonding between the filler and the epoxy matrix. Results revealed that the tensile modulus increases and Poisson’s ratio decreases with increase in the volume fraction of the filler. To study the effect of filler volume fraction, the pulse echo techniques were used to experimentally measure the tensile modulus and Poisson’s ratio for 5% to 15% volume fraction of the filler. A good agreement was found between the RVE based predicted values and the experimental results.


Author(s):  
Jin Chul Yun ◽  
Seong Jin Park

In this study, a representative volume element (RVE) homogenization approach is proposed to predict the mechanical properties of a lithium-ion battery (LIB) cell, module, and pack in an electric vehicle (EV). Different RVE models for the LIB jellyroll and module are suggested. Various elastic properties obtained from RVE analyses were compared to the analytic solution. To validate the approach suggested, the elastic responses of two types of homogenized LIB module for various loading cases were compared to the model where all the jellyroll and module components were described fully. Additionally, parametric studies were conducted to determine the relationship between design parameters of the jellyroll components and the elastic behavior of LIB jellyroll and module. The results obtained in this study provide useful information for both LIB cell developers, at the concept design stage, and engineers of electric vehicles who want to predict the mechanical safety of a battery pack.


2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shulei Sun ◽  
Xiongqi Peng ◽  
Zaoyang Guo

By using a representative volume element (RVE) approach, this paper investigates the effective mechanical properties of anisotropic magnetorheological elastomers (MREs) in which particles are aligned and form chain-like structure under magnetic field during curing. Firstly, a three-dimensional RVE in zero magnetic field is presented in ABAQUS/Standard to calculate the macroscopic mechanical properties of MREs. It is shown that the initial shear modulus of MREs increases by 56% with a 20% volume fraction of particles compared to that of pure rubber. Then by introducing the Maxwell stress tensor, a two-dimensional plane stress RVE for the MRE is developed in COMSOL Multiphysics to study its response under a magnetic field. The influences of magnetic field intensity, radius of particles, and distance between two adjacent particles on the macroscopic mechanical properties of MRE are also investigated. The results show that the shear modulus increases with the increase of the applied magnetic field intensity and the radius of particles and the decrease of the distance between two adjacent particles in a chain. The predicted numerical results are consistent with theoretical results from Mori-Tanaka model, double inclusion model, and dipole model.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 17-29
Author(s):  
Ahmad Fuad Ab Ghani

The properties such as fibre content, orientation, dimension of constituent fibres (diameter), level of intermixing of fibres, interface bonding between fibre and matrix, and arrangement of fibres between different types of fibres, influences the mechanical properties of hybrid composite.Representative Volume Element (RVE) for each constituent CFRP and GFRP assumed isotropic behavior for carbon fibre, glass fibre and epoxy resin matrix and assumed to be perfectly bonded interface between fibre and matrix region i.e. strain compatibility at the interface. The scope of study on the micro mechanical modelling via representative volume element (RVE) is limited only to unidirectional composites.


Author(s):  
Bhavik A Ardeshana ◽  
Umang B Jani ◽  
Ajay M Patel ◽  
Anand Y Joshi

This paper deals with the evaluation of the effective mechanical properties of carbon nanocone centered composites using a 3D nanoscale representative volume element based on continuum mechanics. For extracting the effective material constants, the authors have taken the basis of theories of elasticity. The results constituting the effective Young's modulus of the composite and Poisson's ratio for different parameters stated above have been presented and validated with rule of mixtures. It can be clearly visualized from the results that the load-carrying capacities of carbon nanocones in the representative volume elements are quite significant and the same has been demonstrated with subsequent cases. Simulation-based modeling can show a considerable part in the improvement of carbon nanocone-based composites by providing results that help in appreciative of the performance of composites. Moreover, for a volume fraction of the CNC as 2.33% in a cylindrical representative volume element and a 19.2° apex angle of the cone, the stiffness of the composite can increase as many as 4.9 times of the matrix. Similarly for hexagonal and square, the increase is in terms of 4.3 and 3.01 times respectively. Cylindrical representative volume element is the best as it provides the maximum reinforcement in terms of effective Young's modulus of the composite. Carbon nanocone-based composites provide results that help in understanding the elastic behavior of composites.


2013 ◽  
Vol 275-277 ◽  
pp. 1605-1609
Author(s):  
Nan Zhang ◽  
Cheng Hong Duan

In this paper, a representative volume element (RVE) model of composites with different fiber volume fraction is established by ANSYS finite element software. The stiffness matrix of the RVE model can be calculated by studying its stress field, and then the elastic properties of composites could be obtained. By comparing with the results from NASA empirical equation, the reliability of the method can be proved. This is a new way to predict the elastic properties of composites.


Geofluids ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jianjun Liu ◽  
Mingyang Wu ◽  
Zhengwen Zhu ◽  
Zuliang Shao

Natural porous structure is extremely complex, and it is of great significance to study the macroscopic mechanical response of the representative volume element (RVE) with the microstructure of porous media. The real porous media RVE is generated by an improved quartet structure generation set (QSGS), and the connectivity of the reconstructed porous media models is analyzed. The fractal dimension of the RVE is calculated by the box-counting method, which considers the different porosity, different fractal dimension, and different mechanical properties of the matrix. Thus, the stress-strain curves of the RVE in the elastoplastic stage under different conditions are obtained. The results show that when the matrix mechanics are consistent, the mechanical properties of the porous media RVE are negatively correlated with the porosity and fractal dimension; when the difference between the porosity and fractal dimension increases, the trend is more obvious. The mechanical properties of the RVE have a positive correlation with the modulus of elasticity of the matrix, though the correlation with Poisson’s ratio of the matrix is weak. The fractal dimension of complex porous media can better predict the RVE mechanical characteristics than the porosity.


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