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.

A simple and effective approach for thermo-mechanical modelling of composite superconducting wires

Abstract: The ability to compute accurately the strain field in Nb3Sn filaments is a crucial point in cable design, due to the significant strain sensitivity of niobium–tin wires. Due to its heterogeneity, a straightforward numerical simulation of a cable, taking into account all the details of the microstructure, would result in an enormous number of unknowns. As an alternative, multiscale approaches can be used to deal with this kind of problem, to understand the behaviour across the various scales. In this framework, a simple and efficient approach to obtain the homogenized properties of a heterogeneous strand is proposed here. This approach is developed for the non-linear, thermo-mechanical field. It consists of the solutions to some boundary value problems formulated on a suitably chosen statistically representative volume element of the wire. Two bronze-route strands and one internal-tin strand are considered and the equivalent parameters are obtained. Finally, the cool down and the subsequent application of a tensile axial load are simulated taking into account the homogenized wires. Computed results are shown to be in excellent agreement with measured stress–strain curves.

Prediction of the thermomechanical behavior of particle-reinforced metal matrix composites

Abstract: The objective of this paper was to predict the thermomechanical behavior of 2080 aluminum alloy reinforced with SiC particles using the Mori–Tanaka theory combined with the finite element method. The influences of particle volume fraction, stiffness, aspect ratio and orientation were examined in terms of effective Young’s modulus, Poisson’s ratio and coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) of the composite. The microstructure induced local stress and strain field was obtained through the numerical models of the representative volume element. Results suggested that particle volume fraction had significant impact on the effective Young’s modulus, Poisson’s ratio and CTE of the composite. Stiffer particles could improve the effective Young’s modulus of the composite, while the overall sensitivity of the effective Poisson’s ratio and CTE with respect to the particle stiffness was minimal. Particles with larger aspect ratio generally led to a composite with increased effective Young’s modulus, as well as reduced Poisson’s ratio and CTE. The overall material properties of the composite were insensitive to the particle aspect ratio beyond 10. The particle orientations significantly impacted the effective material properties of the composite, especially along the longitudinal direction. Random 3D dispersed particles exhibited the effective isotropic behavior, whereas anisotropy has been observed for random 2D and unidirectional aligned particles. Our results could help create tailorable bulk composite.

Sensitivity to material contrast in homogenization of random particle composites as micropolar continua

Abstract: Several composite materials used in engineering – such as ceramic/metal matrix composites, concrete, masonry-like/geo–materials and innovative meta–materials – have internal micro-structures characterized by a random distribution of inclusions (particles) embedded in a matrix. Their structural response is highly influenced not only by the mechanical properties of components, but also by the shape, size and position of the inclusions. In this work, we adopt a statistically-based micropolar homogenization procedure, to obtain the overall elastic properties of homogeneous micropolar continua able to naturally account for scale and skew–symmetric shear effects. Attention is paid to the sensitivity to material contrast, defined as the mismatch between classical and micropolar constitutive properties of matrix and inclusions. A statistical specifically conceived convergence criterion is adopted which allow us to identify the REV (Representative Volume Element) for any value of material contrast.