ECCOMAS 2024

On the Use of Representative Inhomogeneous Poisson-Voronoi Tessellations for Brittle Fragmentation Modelling

  • Lhonneur, Joffrey (IRSN)

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Brittle materials are known to break in numerous fragments when subjected to dynamic loadings induced for example by high velocity impacts or explosive shock waves. The description of the resulting fragments features is a key issue in several engineering problems such as the optimization of mining techniques, the development of military protections or the study of weapons effects. Mott’s Pioneering work has led to the development of continuum damage mechanics models based on a Weibull-like theory. These models estimate the number of cracks per unit size of the domain, namely the crack density, and proposes estimations of the fragment size distribution. However, these estimates do not take into account the stochastic nature of the flaws locus from which the crack network has formed and thus they fail to predict the local fragment size dispersion. To overcome this issue, we propose to use inhomogeneous Poisson-Voronoi tessellations to simulate fragmented materials. A study of these tessellations is proposed allowing the obtention of a protocole for estimating a fragment size distribution from the results of continuum damage mechanics-based numerical simulations. The proposed protocole is used on the result of a numerical simulation of an Edge-OnImpact test on a ceramic tile. The estimated fragment size distribution is then compared with an experimental measure made on an actual sample.