Discontinuity layout optimization in upscaling of effective strength properties in matrix-inclusion materials

Abstract

The prediction of strength properties of engineering materials, which in general are time dependent due to chemical reactions and deterioration processes, plays an important role during manufacturing and construction as well as with regard to durability aspects of materials and structures. On the one hand, the speed of production processes and the quality of products may be significantly increased by improved material performance at early ages. On the other hand, the life time of materials and structures can be enlarged and means of repair and maintenance can be optimized. For determination of strength properties of composite materials, a multiscale approach is proposed in this paper. For upscaling of strength properties, numerical limit analysis considering discontinuity layout optimization (DLO) is employed. In a first step, DLO is applied to two-phase material systems, with the matrix being represented by node clouds. In this paper, adaptive techniques regarding the spatial distribution of nodes thus the discontinuity generation are introduced in DLO, improving the computational performance of DLO within upscaling of strength properties