scholarly journals Global Sensitivity Analysis for the Polymeric Microcapsules in Self-Healing Cementitious Composites

Polymers ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 2990 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuai Zhou ◽  
Yue Jia ◽  
Chong Wang

Cementitious composites with microencapsulated healing agents are appealing due to the advantages of self-healing. The polymeric shell and polymeric healing agents in microcapsules have been proven effective in self-healing, while these microcapsules decrease the effective elastic properties of cementitious composites before self-healing happens. The reduction of effective elastic properties can be evaluated by micromechanics. The substantial complicacy included in micromechanical models leads to the need of specifying a large number of parameters and inputs. Meanwhile, there are nonlinearities in input–output relationships. Hence, it is a prerequisite to know the sensitivity of the models. A micromechanical model which can evaluate the effective properties of the microcapsule-contained cementitious material is proposed. Subsequently, a quantitative global sensitivity analysis technique, the Extended Fourier Amplitude Sensitivity Test (EFAST), is applied to identify which parameters are required for knowledge improvement to achieve the desired level of confidence in the results. Sensitivity indices for first-order effects are computed. Results show the volume fraction of microcapsules is the most important factor which influences the effective properties of self-healing cementitious composites before self-healing. The influence of interfacial properties cannot be neglected. The research sheds new light on the influence of parameters on microcapsule-contained self-healing composites.

2017 ◽  
Vol 02 (04) ◽  
pp. 1750015 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Ai ◽  
X.-L. Gao

3D printable two-phase interpenetrating phase composites (IPCs) are designed by embedding a 3D periodic re-entrant lattice structure (as the reinforcing phase) in a matrix phase. These IPCs display the cubic or tetragonal symmetry. A micromechanical model is developed to evaluate effective elastic properties of the IPCs. Effective Young's moduli, shear moduli and Poisson's ratios (PRs) of each IPC are determined from the effective stiffness and compliance matrices of the composite, which are obtained through a homogenization analysis using a unit cell-based finite element (FE) model incorporating periodic boundary conditions. The FE simulation results are also compared with those based on various analytical bounding techniques in micromechanics, including the Voigt–Reuss, Hashin–Shtrikman, and Tuchinskii bounds. The effective properties of the IPC can be tailored by adjusting five geometrical parameters, including two strut lengths, two re-entrant angles and one strut diameter, and elastic properties of the two constituent materials. The numerical results reveal that IPCs with a negative PR can be generated by using a compliant matrix material and large re-entrant angles. In addition, it is found that the two re-entrant angles can greatly affect other effective elastic properties of the IPC: the effective shear modulus can be enhanced, while the effective Young's modulus can be enhanced or compromised with the increase of the re-entrant angles. Furthermore, it is seen that by adjusting one of the two re-entrant angles or one of the two strut lengths, the material symmetry exhibited by the IPC can be changed from cubic to tetragonal.


2013 ◽  
Vol 81 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chetan Shivaputra Jarali ◽  
Somaraddi R. Basavaraddi ◽  
Björn Kiefer ◽  
Sharanabasava C. Pilli ◽  
Y. Charles Lu

In the present study, the effective elastic properties of multifunctional carbon nanotube composites are derived due to the agglomeration of straight circular carbon nanotubes dispersed in soft polymer matrices. The agglomeration of CNTs is common due to the size of nanotubes, which is at nanoscales. Furthermore, it has been proved that straight circular CNTs provide higher stiffness and elastic properties than any other shape of the nanofibers. Therefore, in the present study, the agglomeration effect on the effective elastic moduli of the CNT polymer nanocomposites is investigated when circular CNTs are aligned straight as well as distributed randomly in the matrix. The Mori–Tanaka micromechanics theory is adopted to newly derive the expressions for the effective elastic moduli of the CNT composites including the effect of agglomeration. In this direction, analytical expressions are developed to establish the volume fraction relationships for the agglomeration regions with high, and dilute CNT concentrations. The volume of the matrix in which there may not be any CNTs due to agglomeration is also included in the present formulation. The agglomeration volume fractions are subsequently adopted to develop the effective relations of the composites for transverse isotropy and isotropic straight CNTs. The validation of the modeling technique is assessed with results reported, and the variations in the effective properties for high and dilute agglomeration concentrations are investigated.


2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 205-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chao Zhu ◽  
Ping Zhu ◽  
Jiahai Lu

A fast and effective numerical method to predict mechanical properties of carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites, even elastic properties, is complicated due to the mismatch of mechanical properties among the constituents. Furthermore, it is not possible to completely characterise the influence of multiple parameters including mechanical and structural parameters on the bulk properties of CFRP by experiments. In this study, a three-phase finite-element model consisting of matrix, carbon fibre and interface was developed to predict the elastic mechanical behaviour of unidirectional CFRP. The elastic properties in terms of two Young's moduli, two Poisson's ratios and a shear modulus were calculated by means of a homogenisation method. High-accuracy Kriging surrogate models were constructed to fast-calculate the elastic responses for a large number of samples. Combining Kriging and high-dimensional model representation (HDMR) methods, a global sensitivity analysis was performed to study how the microscopic parameters influence the elastic responses to get a deeper understanding of elastic property-structure relationship. Eleven parameters, including mechanical and geometry properties of constituent phases, were chosen as inputs. Independent and cooperative effects of input parameters on the elastic properties of the studied composites were surveyed via first- and second-order sensitivity indices, respectively. An importance ranking of these parameters for each elastic response was derived directly by these indices. The procedure proposed in this work could serve as a theoretical guide for further design optimisation of CFRP.


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