Determination of the effective thermoelastic properties of cork-based agglomerates

Abstract

In this paper, a general numerical homogenisation scheme coupled with an efficient modelling strategy for predicting the effective thermoelastic properties of cork-based agglomerates is presented. In order to generate a realistic representation of the geometry and distribution of particles for the representative volume element (RVE) of the agglomerate at the mesoscopic scale, a general parametric model based on the Voronoi's tesselation (VT) has been developed. However, the classical algorithm for VT has been enhanced by adding a full parametrization of the RVE. The grains composing the RVE are generated by considering the full set of design variables involved at this scale, i.e. the material properties of the constitutive phases (grains and matrix) and the main geometric parameters related to the grain (volume fraction, average diameter, geometric and material orientations). Numerical results show that the macroscopic effective thermoelastic properties of the cork-based agglomerate are strongly affected by the previous parameters in perfect agreement with experimental results available in literature.

Effect of filler carbonization on agro-waste based ceiling board

“…A variety of polymer composite materials based on cellulose fibers have been produced using different synthetic techniques. 2 These include rice husk-saw dust, 3–5 jatropha curcas seedcake, 6 water melon peels, 7 bamboo, 8 bread fruit seed coat, 9,10 palm kernel fibre, 11–13 cork-based composite, 14,15 cane wood, 15,16,17 etc. Aguele and Madufor, 13 studied the effect of carbonized coir on the physical properties of natural rubber composite.…”

A computational method for determining the linear elastic properties of 2D aperiodic lattice structures

“…By ‘aperiodicity’, we refer to a pattern which is ordered but lacks translational symmetry. This differs significantly from a ‘non-periodic’ assembly such as a composite structure with generalized voronoi-shaped particles, 32 particulate-reinforced materials 30 or cork-based agglomerates, 31 for example. It is impossible to assemble (as possible with periodic repeating patterns) the P3 pattern using the prototiles by implementing local rules.…”

“…29 Even where the structures are non-periodic or are composites containing randomized inclusions of particles, efficient strategies have been developed to determine their properties by imposing periodicity in the neighbourhood of the boundaries representative volume element. [30][31][32] Despite the reliability associated with the numerical homogenization technique described, the efficiency of the process relies significantly on the existence of a repeating unit cell which lies at the heart of lattice periodicity. Non-periodic lattice structures do not feature a repeating unit cell, and as a result a direct application of these techniques is inappropriate.…”