Synthetic Microstructure Generation and Multiscale Analysis of Asphalt Concrete

Abstract

In this paper, we present an enhanced framework for the synthetic asphalt concrete (AC) microstructure generation for the numerical analysis purposes. It is based on the Voronoi tessellation concept with some necessary extensions that allow for the reliable generation of the aggregate particles of the given size distribution. The synthetic microstructure generation allows for faster numerical modeling of the novel materials. It can partially replace the X-ray computed tomography approach, which is frequently used in such analysis. Our framework is a kind of compilation of the known techniques with the enhancements applied to expedite the microstructure modeling process. Therefore, the generated microstructure is used in the numerical upscaling to model the macroscale asphalt concrete properties. We restrict ourselves (in this paper only) to the 2D elastic computations. We also assume the perfect bonding between these two materials and the static load for the sake of simplicity. The upscaling is performed by the multiscale finite element method (MsFEM). A short recapitulation of the MsFEM foundations as well as the numerical test comparing the overkill mesh solution with the upscaled one is provided in the paper. The test results confirm that the whole presented methodology can serve as a fast and reliable tool for the tests on novel asphalt mixtures and other heterogeneous materials. It can reduce the cost of the design process substituting some of the laboratory experiments, giving the opportunity to test the developed constitutive models and expedite the numerical analysis itself.

Higher Order Multiscale Finite Element Method for Heat Transfer Modeling

“…It comprises two main phases: mastic (the asphalt binder mixed with the filler) and the aggregate particles. The detailed procedure of the AC microstructure generation used for this test is presented in [ 24 ]. Given the prescribed gradation curve in asphalt concrete, we used the approach based on the shrunk Voronoi cells to generate a microstructure realizing this requirement.…”

“…Given the prescribed gradation curve in asphalt concrete, we used the approach based on the shrunk Voronoi cells to generate a microstructure realizing this requirement. Using the method presented in [ 24 ], we generated a non-periodic microstructure in a coarse element with “periodic boundary conditions”, which enabled us to easily multiply this geometry. The temperature along the bottom edge was fixed and equal to 15 °C.…”

“…Extensive revisions of the most popular upscaling methods can be found, for instance, in [ 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 ]. In our research, we made use of the multiscale finite-element method (MsFEM) in a form developed in [ 14 , 18 , 23 , 24 ]. A concise description of this is provided in Section 3.1 .…”

“…The auxiliary boundary value problem was introduced, and used for the heat transfer problem. In our previous papers [ 14 , 18 , 23 , 24 ], we applied a higher-order MsFEM to other partial differential equations (PDEs), namely, to the elasticity and viscoelasticity.…”

Effect of filler on performance of porous asphalt pavement using multiscale finite element method

“…Therefore, it is unrealistic to conduct a time-consuming and device-related mesoscale simulation on the entire asphalt pavement. As a remedy, an innovative approach in which both the mesoscale structure of asphalt mixture and the macroscale structure of asphalt pavement can be simultaneously modeled is the finite element (FE) simulation (Ziaei-Rad et al 2012, Zhang and Leng 2017, Klimczak and Cecot 2020, Wollny et al 2020.…”