Search results for "Micromechanic"
showing 10 items of 64 documents
Modelling intergranular and transgranular micro-cracking in polycrystalline materials
2018
Abstract In this work, a grain boundary formulation for intergranular and transgranular micro-cracking in three-dimensional polycrystalline aggregates is presented. The formulation is based on the displacement and stress boundary integral equations of solid mechanics and it has the advantage of expressing the polycrystalline problem in terms of grain boundary variables only. The individual grains within the polycrystalline morphology are modelled as generally anisotropic linear elastic domains with random spatial orientation. Transgranular micro-cracking is assumed to occur along specific cleavage planes, whose orientation in space within the grains depend upon the crystallographic lattice.…
On nonlinear behavior in brittle heterogeneous materials
2006
Abstract Many modern fiber-reinforced composite materials are ‘brittle’, in the sense that their strain to failure under quasi-static loading is typically of the order of 1% when loaded in directions generally controlled by fiber fracture, and the energy-to-failure under the quasi-static loading curve is typically small. For this reason, analysis of these materials is typically done under assumptions of linear elasticity, usually for homogeneous materials or material layers in a laminate. This is in contrast to ‘ductile’ metal behavior in which elastic–plastic behavior is widely discussed. What is most remarkable is the fact that for long-term behavior, the situation is nearly reversed in m…
A Grain-Scale Model of Inter-Granular Stress Corrosion Cracking in Polycrystals
2017
In this contribution, we propose a cohesive grain-boundary model for hydrogen-assisted inter-granular stress corrosion cracking at the grain-scale in 3D polycrystalline aggregates. The inter-granular strength is degraded by the presence of hydrogen and this is accounted for by employing traction-separation laws directly depending on hydrogen concentration, whose diffusion is represented at this stage through simplified phenomenological relationships. The main feature of the model is that all the relevant mechanical fields are represented in terms of grain-boundary variables only, which couples particularly well with the employment of traction-separation laws.
Characteristics of mechanical metamaterials based on buckling elements
2017
Metamaterials are composed of structural elements and derive their properties mainly from the inner structure of the elements, rather than the properties of their constituent material. By designing an unstable structural element as the building block of a metamaterial, many interesting effective material properties can be obtained. The deformation and dissipation mechanisms of such a material built from unstable structural elements is studied in detail. To do so a combination of analytical, semi-analytical, and numerical models are applied to a single buckling element, a periodic cell, and finite size combinations of buckling elements including gradients in the properties of the building bl…
A Microstructural Model for Micro-Cracking in Piezoceramics
2018
Piezoelectric ceramics are employed in several applications for their capability to couple mechanical and electrical fields, which can be advantageously exploited for the implementation of smart functionalities. The electromechanical coupling, which can be employed for fast accurate micro-positioning devices, makes such materials suitable for application in micro electro-mechanical systems (MEMS). However, due to their brittleness, piezoceramics can develop damage leading to initiation of micro-cracks, affecting the performance of the material in general and the micro-devices in particular. For such reasons, the development of accurate and robust numerical tools is an important asset for th…
Grain-boundary modelling of hydrogen assisted intergranular stress corrosion cracking
2018
Abstract A novel hybrid strategy for modelling intergranular hydrogen embrittlement in polycrystalline microstructures is proposed. The technique is based on a grain-boundary integral representation of the polycrystalline micro-mechanics, numerically solved by the boundary element method, coupled with an explicit finite element model of the intergranular hydrogen diffusion. The intergranular interaction between contiguous grains in the aggregate is modelled through extrinsic cohesive-frictional traction-separation laws, whose parameters depend on the concentration of intergranular hydrogen, which diffuses over the interface according to the Fick’s second law, inducing the weakening of the i…
Effect of the loading rate on ultimate strength of composites. Application: Pressure vessel slow burst test
2013
International audience; The strength of unidirectional elastic fibre composites is shown to depend on the loading rate as the viscoelastic nature of the matrix results in a fall in breaking load as the rate is reduced. The simulation of the accumulation of fibre breaks leading to failure, takes into account all physical phenomena involved fibre failure, including the stochastic nature of fibre strength, stress transfer through the matrix between reinforcements, interfacial debonding and the viscoelastic nature of the matrix. The kinetics of composite failure are seen to involve the initial formation of random fibre breaks which at higher loads coalesce into clusters of broken fibres. The ra…
Toward high performance renewable agave reinforced biocomposites: Optimization of fiber performance and fiber-matrix adhesion analysis
2017
Abstract The increasing sensitivity toward the environmental pollution and the recent laws on the environmental protection, have led to an increasing attention to the so called biocomposites, i.e. to ecofriendly or renewable composite materials, obtained from biopolymers reinforced by natural fibers. Although the contribution of various works reported in literature, focused on biocomposites reinforced by agave fibers, such materials are still exclusively used in the automotive industry for non-structural applications, and the implementation of high performance biocomposites for semi-structural and structural applications, is an expected, but not yet reached objective. Therefore, the present…
Fibre break processes in unidirectional composites
2014
International audience; A model to predict the effects of the accumulation of fibre breakages in unidirectional carbon fibre composites has been developed that takes into account several physical phenomena controlling fibre failure, including the stochastic nature of fibre strength, stress transfer between fibres due to the shear of the matrix, interfacial debonding and viscosity of the matrix. The damage processes leading up to failure are discussed and quantified, first in terms of fibre breaks for the case of monotonically increasing tensile loading, then for sustained loading and finally the implications for more complex loads and structures are discussed. It is clearly shown that the f…
A Multiscale Approach to Polycrystalline Materials Damage and Failure
2014
A two-scale three-dimensional approach for degradation and failure in polycrystalline materials is presented. The method involves the component level and the grain scale. The damage-induced softening at the macroscale is modelled employing an initial stress boundary element approach. The microscopic degradation is explicitly modelled associating Representative Volume Elements (RVEs) to relevant points of the macro continuum and employing a cohesive-frictional 3D grain-boundary formulation to simulate intergranular degradation and failure in the Voronoi morphology. Macro-strains are downscaled as RVEs' periodic boundary conditions, while overall macro-stresses are obtained upscaling the micr…