Polycrystalline materials with pores: effective properties through a boundary element homogenization scheme

In this study, the influence of porosity on the elastic effective properties of polycrystalline materials is investigated using a formulation built on a boundary integral representation of the elastic problem for the grains, which are modeled as 3D linearly elastic orthotropic domains with arbitrary spatial orientation. The artificial polycrystalline morphology is represented using 3D Voronoi tessellations. The formulation is expressed in terms of intergranular fields, namely displacements and tractions that play an important role in polycrystalline micromechanics. The continuity of the aggregate is enforced through suitable intergranular conditions. The effective material properties are obtained through material homogenization, computing the volume averages of micro-strains and stresses and taking the ensemble average over a certain number of microstructural samples. In the proposed formulation, the volume fraction of pores, their size and distribution can be varied to better simulate the response of real porous materials. The obtained results show the capability of the model to assess the macroscopic effects of porosity.