Representative elementary volume

About: Representative elementary volume is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 4105 publications have been published within this topic receiving 86863 citations.

Tomography-based Monte Carlo determination of radiative properties of reticulate porous ceramics

Abstract: A 3D digital representation of a reticulate porous ceramic (RPC) sample, generated by computer tomography (CT), is employed to determine its porosity, surface-to-volume ratio, and the minimum size of a representative elementary volume (REV) for continuum domain. Subsequently, the Monte Carlo (MC) ray-tracing technique is applied to calculate the extinction coefficient and scattering phase functions based on the probabilistic distribution functions of the extinction path-length and of the directional cosine of incident radiation. The methodology and governing equations are presented for diffusely and specularly reflecting surfaces. The isotropic assumption is justified by demonstrating that the extinction coefficient is directionally independent.

An improved Gurson-type model for hardenable ductile metals

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to improve the modelling of strain hardening within the framework of the famous Gurson model for porous ductile metals. Indeed, although the original derivation of this model, for an ideal-plastic matrix, was based on a micromechanical analysis of some representative volume element, namely a hollow rigid-plastic sphere loaded axisymmetrically, the extension to the case of a hardenable matrix was of purely phenomenological and macroscopic nature, and this entailed a number of drawbacks. The phenomenological model was incompatible with the classical, exact solution to the problem of a hollow rigid-hardenable sphere loaded hydrostatically; also, the prediction that for any loading path corresponding to a fixed triaxiality, the curve representing porosity as a function of equivalent strain depended only on the initial porosity and the triaxiality but not on the hardening exponent, was incorrect. A new model solving these difficulties, based on an approximate analysis of a hollow rigid-hardenable sphere subjected to some axisymmetric loading, is proposed. Two types of hardening are considered: isotropic, as in Gurson's original model, and kinematic, as in Mear and Hutchinson's variant of Gurson's model. Comparisons with some finite element simulations evidence the improvements brought.

Statistically Equivalent Representative Volume Elements for Unidirectional Composite Microstructures: Part I - Without Damage

Abstract: The representative volume element (RVE) of a material microstructure plays an important role in the analysis of heterogeneous materials, such as composites. Effective material properties in a composite material depend on the microstructural concentration and dispersion of different phases in the RVE. In this study, a combination of statistical and computational tools are proposed for identifying the statistically equivalent RVE (SERVE) for an elastic composite with nonuniform dispersion of inclusions. Numerical tests are conducted with various statistical functions of geometry, stresses, and strains to examine the validity of potential alternative definitions of the SERVE. In the first of this two-part article, methods are addressed for undamaged composite microstructures with continuous interfaces between the fiber and the matrix. The sequel article deals with the evolution of SERVE caused by damage due to interfacial debonding.