Digital Materials

Abstract

A prediction of apparent properties of random structures is obtained from the numerical solution of the PDE concerning the physical fields on real images or on simulations of random media in bounded domains. For this purpose, numerical calculations are made by Finite Elements or by FFT. This numerical approach involves a statistical definition of a representative volume element RVE to provide intervals of confidence of the estimated apparent properties. Furthermore, from full-field simulations a morphological analysis of the fields can be performed to promote connections between the random microstructure and its local response to physical solicitations. This is illustrated by examples of application to various microstructures of industrial materials, as well as to models of random sets.