Robust Multiscale Identification of Apparent Elastic Properties at Mesoscale for Random Heterogeneous Materials with Multiscale Field Measurements

The aim of this work is to efficiently and robustly solve the statistical inverse problem related to the identification of the elastic properties at both macroscopic and mesoscopic scales of heterogeneous anisotropic materials with a complex microstructure that usually cannot be properly described in terms of their mechanical constituents at microscale. Within the context of linear elasticity theory, the apparent elasticity tensor field at a given mesoscale is modeled by a prior non-Gaussian tensor-valued random field. A general methodology using multiscale displacement field measurements simultaneously made at both macroscale and mesoscale has been recently proposed for the identification the hyperparameters of such a prior stochastic model by solving a multiscale statistical inverse problem using a stochastic computational model and some information from displacement fields at both macroscale and mesoscale. This paper contributes to the improvement of the computational efficiency, accuracy and robustness of such a method by introducing (i) a mesoscopic numerical indicator related to the spatial correlation length(s) of kinematic fields, allowing the time-consuming global optimization algorithm (genetic algorithm) used in a previous work to be replaced with a more efficient algorithm and (ii) an ad hoc stochastic representation of the hyperparameters involved in the prior stochastic model in order to enhance both the robustness and the precision of the statistical inverse identification method. Finally, the proposed improved method is first validated on in silico materials within the framework of 2D plane stress and 3D linear elasticity (using multiscale simulated data obtained through numerical computations) and then exemplified on a real heterogeneous biological material (beef cortical bone) within the framework of 2D plane stress linear elasticity (using multiscale experimental data obtained through mechanical testing monitored by digital image correlation)

Registration of 3D Point Clouds and Meshes: A Survey From Rigid to Non-Rigid

Three-dimensional surface registration transforms multiple three-dimensional data sets into the same coordinate system so as to align overlapping components of these sets. Recent surveys have covered different aspects of either rigid or nonrigid registration, but seldom discuss them as a whole. Our study serves two purposes: 1) To give a comprehensive survey of both types of registration, focusing on three-dimensional point clouds and meshes and 2) to provide a better understanding of registration from the perspective of data fitting. Registration is closely related to data fitting in which it comprises three core interwoven components: model selection, correspondences and constraints, and optimization. Study of these components 1) provides a basis for comparison of the novelties of different techniques, 2) reveals the similarity of rigid and nonrigid registration in terms of problem representations, and 3) shows how overfitting arises in nonrigid registration and the reasons for increasing interest in intrinsic techniques. We further summarize some practical issues of registration which include initializations and evaluations, and discuss some of our own observations, insights and foreseeable research trends

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationVolumetric parameterization is an emerging field in computer graphics, where volumetric representations that have a semi-regular tensor-product structure are desired in applications such as three-dimensional (3D) texture mapping and physically-based simulation. At the same time, volumetric parameterization is also needed in the Isogeometric Analysis (IA) paradigm, which uses the same parametric space for representing geometry, simulation attributes and solutions. One of the main advantages of the IA framework is that the user gets feedback directly as attributes of the NURBS model representation, which can represent geometry exactly, avoiding both the need to generate a finite element mesh and the need to reverse engineer the simulation results from the finite element mesh back into the model. Research in this area has largely been concerned with issues of the quality of the analysis and simulation results assuming the existence of a high quality volumetric NURBS model that is appropriate for simulation. However, there are currently no generally applicable approaches to generating such a model or visualizing the higher order smooth isosurfaces of the simulation attributes, either as a part of current Computer Aided Design or Reverse Engineering systems and methodologies. Furthermore, even though the mesh generation pipeline is circumvented in the concept of IA, the quality of the model still significantly influences the analysis result. This work presents a pipeline to create, analyze and visualize NURBS geometries. Based on the concept of analysis-aware modeling, this work focusses in particular on methodologies to decompose a volumetric domain into simpler pieces based on appropriate midstructures by respecting other relevant interior material attributes. The domain is decomposed such that a tensor-product style parameterization can be established on the subvolumes, where the parameterization matches along subvolume boundaries. The volumetric parameterization is optimized using gradient-based nonlinear optimization algorithms and datafitting methods are introduced to fit trivariate B-splines to the parameterized subvolumes with guaranteed order of accuracy. Then, a visualization method is proposed allowing to directly inspect isosurfaces of attributes, such as the results of analysis, embedded in the NURBS geometry. Finally, the various methodologies proposed in this work are demonstrated on complex representations arising in practice and research