Modeling of the Ceramics Structure for the Finite Element Analysis

Ceramic materials are extensively used for impact protection systems. The finite element method is generally used for strength calculation of such materials. As ceramics is a heterogeneous material, its characteristics depend significantly both on characteristics of its components, and on the material structure as a whole. Therein, micro-modeling of ceramics structures is the object of a large number of studies. The publications review shows that modeling of pores in ceramic materials is realized as removal of groups of finite elements. Pores are commonly modeled as spheres. In addition, ceramics grains are modeled as spherical elements. It is clear that such approaches do not enable obtaining a description of the real structure of ceramics. In this regard, author tries to describe the ceramics structure as a set of one or several phases and a variety of pores in a homogeneous material of the remaining part of the ceramic plate. For the purpose of universality ceramics grains and pores are modeled as six-sided subareas. Sides of these subareas may have curvilinear forms, so intersections and modifications of curved surfaces provide a way to get subareas with fewer sides than initial subareas. For the initial version, an equation of sphere is chosen to describe these surfaces. Scaling of subareas and their location within the ceramic plate is executed using random variables. The obtained mathematical model of a ceramic plate is used for finite element meshing. Preliminary calculation with ANSYS/LS-DYNA has shown that quality of 8-node finite element mesh generated by the considered method is sufficient to such FEA programs.