Dr. Katherine Acton

A statistical approach to modeling heterogeneous material behavior is necessary to capture the local behavior that profoundly affects such macroscale behaviors as brittle fracture and wave propagation. The study of mesoscale Statistical Volume Elements (SVE) is complicated by the fact that, by definition, SVE material behavior is non-unique and depends on the boundary conditions applied. SVE material property approximations assume a continuum representation of the material, with all the associated inherent assumptions, and the choice of the scale of material evaluation is another significant assumption. But the benefits of a mesoscale representation of a material are also evident: one can “tune” the variability of the representation of a material behavior by changing the scale of representation, allowing for adaptive changes in mesh density, for example in fracture modeling.