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Characterisation of materials with hyperelastic microstructures through computational homogenisation and optimisation methods. / Derek C. D Speirs

Swansea University Author: Derek C. D Speirs

Abstract

The constitutive modelling of microheterogeneous materials is a subject of considerable practical and theoretical interest. Among many approaches computational homogenisation is particularly powerful and versatile. This is based on the numerical estimation of the mechanical response of a volume elem...

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Published: 2007
Institution: Swansea University
Degree level: Doctoral
Degree name: Ph.D
URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa42354
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Abstract: The constitutive modelling of microheterogeneous materials is a subject of considerable practical and theoretical interest. Among many approaches computational homogenisation is particularly powerful and versatile. This is based on the numerical estimation of the mechanical response of a volume element representing the material's microstructure. This thesis is concerned with computational homogenisation and its particular use in characterising materials with hyperelastic microstructures through an optimisation based methodology. Details of a finite element implementation of the computational homogenisation procedure are presented. These are derived from a variational treatment of the homogenisation problem. Examples of the application of the method to hyperelastic microstructures are reported. Next a procedure to provide a convenient characterisation of the behaviour of composite material is considered. This consists of adopting a conventional explicit model to approximate the macroscopic mechanical behaviour. Parameters of the model are chosen by established optimisation methods so that the macro model best fits the calculated homogenised response of a model of the microstructure. The optimisation based methodology is applied to the problem of modelling the constitutive behaviour of artery walls.
Keywords: Materials science.;Computer engineering.
College: Faculty of Science and Engineering