Characterizing digital microstructures by the Minkowski‐based quadratic normal tensor

For material modeling of microstructured media, an accurate characterization of the underlying microstructure is indispensable. Mathematically speaking, the overall goal of microstructure characterization is to find simple functionals which describe the geometric shape as well as the composition of the microstructures under consideration and enable distinguishing microstructures with distinct effective material behavior. For this purpose, we propose using Minkowski tensors, in general, and the quadratic normal tensor, in particular, and introduce a computational algorithm applicable to voxel-based microstructure representations. Rooted in the mathematical field of integral geometry, Minkowski tensors associate a tensor to rather general geometric shapes, which make them suitable for a wide range of microstructured material classes. Furthermore, they satisfy additivity and continuity properties, which makes them suitable and robust for large-scale applications. We present a modular algorithm for computing the quadratic normal tensor of digital microstructures. We demonstrate multigrid convergence for selected numerical examples and apply our approach to a variety of microstructures. Strikingly, the presented algorithm remains unaffected by inaccurate computation of the interface area. The quadratic normal tensor may be used for engineering purposes, such as mean field homogenization or as target value for generating synthetic microstructures

Approximations of the Wiener sausage and its curvature measures

A parallel neighborhood of a path of a Brownian motion is sometimes called the Wiener sausage. We consider almost sure approximations of this random set by a sequence of random polyconvex sets and show that the convergence of the corresponding mean curvature measures holds under certain conditions in two and three dimensions. Based on these convergence results, the mean curvature measures of the Wiener sausage are calculated numerically by Monte Carlo simulations in two dimensions. The corresponding approximation formulae are given.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/09-AAP596 the Annals of Applied Probability (http://www.imstat.org/aap/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Minkowski Tensors of Anisotropic Spatial Structure

This article describes the theoretical foundation of and explicit algorithms for a novel approach to morphology and anisotropy analysis of complex spatial structure using tensor-valued Minkowski functionals, the so-called Minkowski tensors. Minkowski tensors are generalisations of the well-known scalar Minkowski functionals and are explicitly sensitive to anisotropic aspects of morphology, relevant for example for elastic moduli or permeability of microstructured materials. Here we derive explicit linear-time algorithms to compute these tensorial measures for three-dimensional shapes. These apply to representations of any object that can be represented by a triangulation of its bounding surface; their application is illustrated for the polyhedral Voronoi cellular complexes of jammed sphere configurations, and for triangulations of a biopolymer fibre network obtained by confocal microscopy. The article further bridges the substantial notational and conceptual gap between the different but equivalent approaches to scalar or tensorial Minkowski functionals in mathematics and in physics, hence making the mathematical measure theoretic method more readily accessible for future application in the physical sciences

A computational multi-scale approach for brittle materials

Materials of industrial interest often show a complex microstructure which directly influences their macroscopic material behavior. For simulations on the component scale, multi-scale methods may exploit this microstructural information. This work is devoted to a multi-scale approach for brittle materials. Based on a homogenization result for free discontinuity problems, we present FFT-based methods to compute the effective crack energy of heterogeneous materials with complex microstructures

Hadwiger Integration of Definable Functions

This thesis denes and classies valuations on denable functionals. The intrinsicvolumes are valuations on tame subsets of R^n, and by easy extension, valuations on functionals on R^n with nitely many level sets, each a tame subset of R^n. We extend these valuations, which we call Hadwiger integrals, to denable functionals on R^n, and present some important properties of the valuations. With the appropriate topologies on the set of denable functionals, we obtain dual classication theorems for general valuations on such functionals. We also explore integral transforms, convergence results, and applications of the Hadwiger integrals

Scale-Bridging of Elasto-Plastic Microstructures using Statistically Similar Representative Volume Elements

Die vorliegende Arbeit behandelt die numerische Modellierung des mechanischen Verhaltens mikroheterogener Materialien, wobei das Hauptaugenmerk auf Dualphasenstähle gelegt wird. Ihr makroskopisches Verhalten wird durch die Interaktion der Einzelphasen auf mikrostruktureller Ebene geprägt. Der Einfluss der Morphologie einer realistischen Mikrostruktur kann durch die Verwendung von repräsentativen Volumenelementen (RVEs) unter Anwendung der FE²-Methode direkt in die Materialmodellierung einbezogen werden. Dabei entsteht für RVEs, die als Ausschnitte einer realen Mikrostruktur konstruiert werden, ein enormer Rechenaufwand. Eine Reduzierung des Aufwands ist durch die Verwendung von statistisch ähnlichen RVEs (SSRVEs) möglich. Diese sind durch Ähnlichkeit in Bezug auf bestimmte statistische Maße definiert und liefern gleichzeitig Gleichartigkeit des mechanischen Verhaltens. Die verschiedenen Aspekte der Konstruktion von SSRVEs sind ein Schwerpunkt dieser Arbeit. Es wird gezeigt, dass SSRVEs die mechanischen Eigenschaften der realen Mikrostruktur widerspiegeln und damit ihre Verwendung im Rahmen der FE² -Methode ermöglicht wird. Die Simulation makroskopischer Eigenschaften basierend auf polykristallinen RVEs wird gezeigt. Diese ermöglichen die Beschreibung polykristalliner Materialien, welche von ihrer mikrostrukturellen Textur geprägt werden.The present work deals with the numerical modeling of the mechanical behavior of microheterogeneous materials, with a focus on dual-phase steel. The macroscopic behavior of this material is largely influenced by an interaction of the microstructural constituents. The influence of the morphology of a real microstructure can be included in the material modeling by the application of a suitable representative volume element (RVE) in a direct micro-macro homogenization scheme (also known as FE²-method). However, the use of sections of a real microstructure as an RVE can lead to huge computational costs. A cost reduction can be achieved by the application of statistically similar RVEs (SSRVEs). They are governed by similarities of selected statistical measures with respect to a real microstructure and show a comparable mechanical behavior. The different aspects in the construction method are a main focus of this work. It is shown that SSRVEs can resemble the mechanical behavior of a real DP steel microstructure appropriately, which permits their use in FE²-simulations instead of real microstructures. Aiming for a description of polycrystalline materials governed by texture, the simulation of macroscopic properties based on polycrystalline RVEs is shown