Search results for "micromechanic"
showing 10 items of 64 documents
A Model for High-Cycle Fatigue in Polycrystals
2018
A grain-scale formulation for high-cycle fatigue inter-granular degradation in polycrystalline aggregates is presented. The aggregate is represented through Voronoi tessellations and the mechanics of individual bulk grains is modelled using a boundary integral formulation. The inter-granular interfaces degrade under the action of cyclic tractions and they are represented using cohesive laws embodying a local irreversible damage parameter that evolves according to high-cycle continuum damage laws. The consistence between cyclic and static damage, which plays an important role in the redistribution of inter-granular tractions upon cyclic degradation, is assessed at each fatigue solution jump,…
Virtual Element Method: Micro-Mechanics Applications
2019
In this contribution we present an application of the lowest order Virtual Element Method (VEM) to the problem of material computational homogenization. Material homogenization allows retrieving material properties through suitable volume averaging procedures, starting from a detailed representation of the micro-constituents of the considered material. The representation of such microstructure constitutes a remarkable effort in terms of data/mesh preparation, especially when there is not evident microstructural regularity. For such a reason, computational micromechanics may represent a challenging benchmark for showing the potential of VEM. In this contribution, polycrystalline materials ar…
A Model for Low-Cycle Fatigue in Micro-Structured Materials
2019
A microscale formulation for low-cycle fatigue degradation in heterogeneous materials is presented. The interface traction-separation law is modelled by a cohesive zone model for low-cycle fatigue analysis, which is developed in a consistent thermodynamic framework of elastic-plastic-damage mechanics with internal variables. A specific fatigue activation condition allows to model the material degradation related to the elastic-plastic cyclic loading conditions, with tractions levels lower than the static failure condition. A moving endurance surface, in the classic framework of kinematic hardening, enables a pure elastic behaviour without any fatigue degradation for low levels of cyclic tra…
Non-destructive automatic determination of aspect ratio and cross-sectional properties of fibres
2015
A novel method for computerised estimation of the aspect ratio distribution and various cross-sectional geometrical properties of fibres in short-fibre reinforced composites is proposed. The method, based on X-ray micro-computed tomography, is non-destructive and does not require user intervention. Based on results on specially fabricated model material, the accuracy and precision of the method seems adequate. The method is applied in analysing a manufacturing process of wood fibre reinforced thermoplastic composite. The results indicate a significant decrease of the aspect ratio of fibres during the processing steps. Finally, the feasibility of the method is assessed by estimating paramete…
A model for low-cycle fatigue in micro-structured materials
2020
A microscale formulation for low-cycle fatigue degradation in heterogeneous materials is presented. The interface traction-separation law is modelled by a cohesive zone model for low-cycle fatigue analysis, which is developed in a consistent thermodynamic framework of elastic-plastic-damage mechanics with internal variables. A specific fatigue activation condition allows to model the material degradation related to the elastic-plastic cyclic loading conditions, with tractions levels lower than the static failure condition. A moving endurance surface, in the classic framework of kinematic hardening, enables a pure elastic behaviour without any fatigue degradation for low levels of cyclic tra…
Virtual element method for computational homogenization of composite and heterogeneous materials
2020
Abstract In this study, a two-dimensional multi-region framework, based on the use of the Virtual Element Method (VEM), is developed for computational materials homogenization and applied to different classes of widely employed heterogeneous materials. The VEM has recently emerged as a powerful generalisation of the Finite Element Method capable of dealing with very general polygonal mesh elements, including non-convex or highly distorted elements. Such features are appealing for the treatment of problems whose analysis domains present complex or statistical morphological features, which would generally require careful and time-consuming mesh/data preparation and regularization. In this wor…
Computational Homogenization of Heterogeneous Materials by a Novel Hybrid Numerical Scheme
2020
The Virtual Element Method (VEM) is a recent numerical technique capable of dealing with very general polygonal and polyhedral mesh elements, including irregular or non-convex ones. Because of this feature, the VEM ensures noticeable simplification in the data preparation stage of the analysis, especially for problems whose analysis domain features complex geometries, as in the case of computational micro-mechanics problems. The Boundary Element Method (BEM) is a well known, extensively used and effective numerical technique for the solution of several classes of problems in science and engineering. Due to its underlying formulation, the BEM allows reducing the dimensionality of the proble…
Physiological Micromechanics of the Anterior Mitral Valve Leaflet
2011
An improved understanding of mitral valve (MV) function remains an important goal for determining mechanisms underlying valve disease and for developing novel therapies. Critical to heart valve tissue homeostasis is the valvular interstitial cells (VICs), which reside in the interstitium and maintain the extracellular matrix (ECM) through both protein synthesis and enzymatic degradation [1]. There is scant experimental data on the alterations of the MV fiber network reorganization as a function of load, which is critical for implementation of computational strategies that attempt to link this meso-micro scale phenomenon. The observed large scale deformations experienced by VICs could be imp…
A Novel Numerical Formulation for Crystal Plasticity
2016
Crystal plasticity plays a crucial role in the mechanics of polycrystalline materials and it is commonly modeled within the framework of the crystal plasticity finite element method (CPFEM). In this work, an alternative formulation for small strains crystal plasticity is presented. The method is based on a boundary integral formulation for polycrystalline problems and plasticity is addressed using an initial strains approach. Voronoi-type micro-morphologies are considered in the polycrystalline case. A general grain-boundary incremental/iterative algorithm, embedding the flow and hardening rules for crystal plasticity, is developed. The key feature of the method is the expression of the mic…
A Model for high-cycle fatigue in polycrystals
2018
A grain-scale formulation for high-cycle fatigue inter-granular degradation in polycrystalline aggregates is presented. The aggregate is represented through Voronoi tessellations and the mechanics of individual bulk grains is modelled using a boundary integral formulation. The inter-granular interfaces degrade under the action of cyclic tractions and they are represented using cohesive laws embodying a local irreversible damage parameter that evolves according to high- cycle continuum damage laws. The consistence between cyclic and static damage, which plays an important role in the redistribution of inter-granular tractions upon cyclic degradation, is assessed at each fatigue solution jump…