Mesoscale Modeling, Simulation And Optimization Of Mineral Composite Material

Mineral composite material (MCM) is a new kind of composite material with modified epoxy resin as its binder, mineral particles as its aggregate, and usually reinforced by filler. Mineral composite material has better vibration damping performance, lower thermal expansion rate and heat conduction speed. Instead of traditional materials such as cast iron and cast steel, it can be used as a structural material to manufacture precision machine tool beds to improve their performance. But the disadvantage of this material is that its mechanical properties are lower than steel, which restricts its potential applications. There are so many factors affecting the properties of mineral composite, which includes aggregate grading, physical properties of the aggregate and binder, etc. Therefore, designing appropriate material structure and aggregate gradation, adopting higher performance aggregate and binder, can effectively improve the properties of the mineral composite material.In this paper, the 3D quality distribution curves of the Fuller gradation, SAC gradation and discrete distribution have been converted to 2D sectional area distribution curves based on the derivation of Walraven formula. The program for establishing the mesoscale model of mineral composite structure is developed in MATLAB software. The random polygonal aggregates are firstly generated by using polygonal extending and shrinking method, and then placed into the space, the 2D mesoscale models with different gradations have been generated in this way.With the finite element software LS-DYNA, the mechanical properties and thermal performance of the mineral composite materials with Fuller gradation, SAC gradation and so on, have been calculated, and the best aggregate gradation is obtained by comparing the material performances under different aggregate gradations. The influences of the yield strength and elastic modulus, thermal expansion coefficient, specific heat, coefficient of thermal conductivity of the aggregate and binder on the mechanical and thermal properties of mineral composites are obtained by using the LS-OPT, the mechanical and thermal properties of composite materials have been optimized.Based on the mesoscale modeling and simulation, the influences of material structures and the properties of every components on the composite performance can be analyzed, the material structure can be optimized. It is of great significance to establishing the relation of composition-structure-performance of the composite materials, and shorten the development period of new materials.