• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
• /
• v.3 no.2 s.7
• /
• pp.1-10
• /
• 1999

The evaluation of fracture toughness in weldment is necessary for the safety performance of industrial structures with large scale such as various power plants, LNG (liquefied natural gas) storage tanks, etc. It is generally known that weldments have material heterogeneity, which results in the serious changes in fracture characteristics of HAZ (heat-affected zone). Nevertheless, the systematic study on material heterogeneity of weldment has not been performed yet in Korea. Therefore in this paper, the effects of material heterogeneity on the fracture toughness of structural steel HAZ were introduced and reviewed.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
• /
• v.20 no.1
• /
• pp.23-32
• /
• 2022

Pyroprocessing is a promising technology for managing spent nuclear fuel. The nuclear material accounting of feed material is a challenging issue in safeguarding pyroprocessing facilities. The input material in pyroprocessing is in a solid-state, unlike the solution state in an input accountability tank used in conventional wet-type reprocessing. To reduce the uncertainty of the input material accounting, a double-stage homogenization process is proposed in considering the process throughput, remote controllability, and remote maintenance of an engineering-scale pyroprocessing facility. This study tests two types of mixing equipment in the proposed double-stage homogenization process using surrogate materials. The expected heterogeneity and accounting uncertainty of Pu are calculated based on the surrogate test results. The heterogeneity of Pu was 0.584% obtained from Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) spent fuel of 59 WGd/tU when the relative standard deviation of the mass ratio, tested from the surrogate powder, is 1%. The uncertainty of the Pu accounting can be lower than 1% when the uncertainty of the spent fuel mass charged into the first mixers is 2%, and the uncertainty of the first sampling mass is 5%.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
• /
• v.7 no.4
• /
• pp.375-401
• /
• 2014

It is generally accepted that material heterogeneity has a great influence on the deformation, strength, damage and failure modes of rock. This paper presents numerical simulation on rock failure process based on the characterization of rock heterogeneity by using a digital image processing (DIP) technique. The actual heterogeneity of rock at mesoscopic scale (characterized as minerals) is retrieved by using a vectorization transformation method based on the digital image of rock surface, and it is imported into a well-established numerical code Rock Failure Process Analysis (RFPA), in order to examine the effect of rock heterogeneity on the rock failure process. In this regard, the numerical model of rock could be built based on the actual characterization of the heterogeneity of rock at the meso-scale. Then, the images of granite are taken as an example to illustrate the implementation of DIP technique in simulating the rock failure process. Three numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the impact of actual rock heterogeneity due to spatial distribution of constituent mineral grains (e.g., feldspar, quartz and mica) on the macro-scale mechanical response, and the associated rock failure mechanism at the meso-scale level is clarified. The numerical results indicate that the shape and distribution of constituent mineral grains have a pronounced impact on stress distribution and concentration, which may further control the failure process of granite. The proposed method provides an efficient tool for studying the mechanical behaviors of heterogeneous rock and rock-like materials whose failure processes are strongly influenced by material heterogeneity.

• Composites Research
• /
• v.26 no.6
• /
• pp.392-397
• /
• 2013

Functionally graded materials graded continuously and discretely, and are modeled using modified Mori- Tanaka and self-consistent methods. The proposed micromechanics model accounts for multi-phase heterogeneity and arbitrary number of layers. The influence of geometries and distinct elastic material properties of each constituent and voids on the effective elastic properties of FGM is investigated. Numerical examples of different functionally graded materials are presented. The predicted elastic properties obtained from the current model agree well with experimental results from the literature.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
• /
• v.34 no.6
• /
• pp.683-696
• /
• 2023

The destruction and fracture of rock masses are crucial components in engineering and there is an increasing demand for the study of the influence of rock mass heterogeneity on the safety of engineering projects. The numerical manifold method (NMM) has a unified solution format for continuous and discontinuous problems. In most NMM studies, material homogeneity has been assumed and despite this simplification, fracture mechanics remain complex and simulations are inefficient because of the complicated topology updating operations that are needed after crack propagation. These operations become computationally expensive especially in the cases of heterogeneous materials. In this study, a heterogeneous model algorithm based on stochastic theory was developed and introduced into the NMM. A new fracture algorithm was developed to simulate the rupture zone. The algorithm was validated for the examples of the four-point shear beam and semi-circular bend. Results show that the algorithm can efficiently simulate the rupture zone of heterogeneous rock masses. Heterogeneity has a powerful effect on the macroscopic failure characteristics and uniaxial compressive strength of rock masses. The peak strength of homogeneous material (with heterogeneity or standard deviation of 0) is 2.4 times that of heterogeneous material (with heterogeneity of 11.0). Moreover, the local distribution of parameter values can affect the configuration of rupture zones in rock masses. The local distribution also influences the peak value on the stress-strain curve and the residual strength. The post-peak stress-strain curve envelope from 60 random calculations can be used as an estimate of the strength of engineering rock masses.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.37 no.2
• /
• pp.197-213
• /
• 2011

Concrete is a heterogeneous material exhibiting quasi-brittle behaviour. While homogenization of concrete is commonly accepted in general engineering applications, a detailed description of the material heterogeneity using a mesoscale model becomes desirable and even necessary for problems where drastic spatial and time variation of the stress and strain is involved, for example in the analysis of local damages under impact, shock or blast load. A mesoscale model can also assist in an investigation into the underlying mechanisms affecting the bulk material behaviour under various stress conditions. Extending from existing mesoscale model studies, where use is often made of specialized codes with limited capability in the material description and numerical solutions, this paper presents a mesoscale computational model developed under a general-purpose finite element environment. The aim is to facilitate the utilization of sophisticated material descriptions (e.g., pressure and rate dependency) and advanced numerical solvers to suit a broad range of applications, including high impulsive dynamic analysis. The whole procedure encompasses a module for the generation of concrete mesoscale structure; a process for the generation of the FE mesh, considering two alternative schemes for the interface transition zone (ITZ); and the nonlinear analysis of the mesoscale FE model with an explicit time integration approach. The development of the model and various associated computational considerations are discussed in this paper (Part 1). Further numerical studies using the mesoscale model for both quasi-static and dynamic loadings will be presented in the companion paper (Part 2).

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.57 no.4
• /
• pp.703-716
• /
• 2016

In this paper, we have investigated shear horizontal wave propagation in a layered structure, consisting of granular macromorphic rock (Dionysos Marble) substrate underlying a viscoelastic layer of finite thickness. SH waves characteristics are affected by the material properties of both substrate and the coating. The effects of microstructural parameter "characteristic length" of the substrate, along with heterogeneity, internal friction and thickness of viscoelastic layer are studied on the dispersion curves. Dispersion equation for SH wave is derived. Real and damping phase velocities of SH waves are studied against dimensionless wave number, for different combinations of various parameters involved in the problem.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
• /
• v.10 no.7
• /
• pp.143-150
• /
• 2009

Material functions about effective stress, permeability, coefficient of consolidation and coefficient of volume change has important role to predict consolidation velocity and settlement of soft ground. Modified oedometer for radial drainage is adapted to find out material functions on laboratory tests. Undisturbed sample for laboratory tests were taken from construction sites of industrial complexes on southern coastal area which consists of upper dredged fill and lower original clay layer. For different drainage condition in consolidation process void ratio, effective stress, permeability, coefficient of consolidation and coefficient of volume change has been assessed with results of existing standard oedometer tests. It is worthwhile to note that consolidation material functions could be expressed as regression equation by Stark (2005), heterogeneity for permeability could be assessed from these relationships.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
• /
• v.17 no.4
• /
• pp.285-294
• /
• 2007

Material properties of geomaterials are usually heterogeneous. And the limitted number of investigation for the subsurface material properties in terms of boreholes are not sufficient enough for identifying the heterogeneity. In most civil engineering work, pre-investigation results can be different from those by in-situ inspection during the construction work. With these points of view, a new analysis concept aiming to evaluate the uncertainty resulted from the heterogeneity of the geomaterial properties as well as to enhance a construction workability and design qualify by a prompt feedback of in-situ conditions was proposed. It was accomplished by linking the Element Free analysis and pre-developed stochastic methods represented by Karhunen-Loeve expansion. Simple ID problem was solved by the developed method, and its validity as well as the characteristic results by different stochastic methods were clarified.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.37 no.2
• /
• pp.215-231
• /
• 2011

As a brittle and heterogeneous material, concrete behaves differently under different stress conditions and its bulk strength is loading rate dependent. To a large extent, the varying behavioural properties of concrete can be explained by the mechanical failure processes at a mesoscopic level. The development of a computational mesoscale model in a general finite element environment, as presented in the preceding companion paper (Part 1), makes it possible to investigate into the underlying mechanisms governing the bulk-scale behaviour of concrete under a variety of loading conditions and to characterise the variation in quantitative terms. In this paper, we first present a series of parametric studies on the behaviour of concrete material under quasi-static compression and tension conditions. The loading-face friction effect, the possible influences of the non-homogeneity within the mortar and ITZ phases, and the effect of randomness of coarse aggregates are examined. The mesoscale model is then applied to analyze the dynamic behaviour of concrete under high rate loading conditions. The potential contribution of the mesoscopic heterogeneity towards the generally recognized rate enhancement of the material compressive strength is discussed.