Computational generation of virtual concrete mesostructures

Vijaya Holla, Giao Vu, Jithender J. Timothy, Fabian Diewald, Christoph Gehlen, Günther Meschke

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

25 Scopus citations

Abstract

Concrete is a heterogeneous material with a disordered material morphology that strongly governs the behaviour of the material. In this contribution, we present a computational tool called the Concrete Mesostructure Generator (CMG) for the generation of ultra-realistic virtual concrete morphologies for mesoscale and multiscale computational modelling and the simulation of concrete. Given an aggregate size distribution, realistic generic concrete aggregates are generated by a sequential reduction of a cuboid to generate a polyhedron with multiple faces. Thereafter, concave depressions are introduced in the polyhedron using Gaussian surfaces. The generated aggregates are assembled into the mesostructure using a hierarchic random sequential adsorption algorithm. The virtual mesostructures are first calibrated using laboratory measurements of aggregate distributions. The model is validated by comparing the elastic properties obtained from laboratory testing of concrete specimens with the elastic properties obtained using computational homogenisation of virtual concrete mesostructures. Finally, a 3D-convolutional neural network is trained to directly generate elastic properties from voxel data.

Original languageEnglish
Article number3782
JournalMaterials
Volume14
Issue number14
DOIs
StatePublished - 2 Jul 2021

Keywords

  • Concrete
  • Machine learning
  • Mesoscale
  • Modelling
  • Virtual mesostructure

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