A boundary element method for thermo-elastic homogenization of polycrystals

A computational framework for thermo-elastic homogenization of polycrystalline materials is proposed. The formulation is developed at the crystal level and it is based on the explicit Voronoi representation of the micro-morphology. The crystal thermo-elastic equations are formulated in an integral form and numerically treated through the boundary element method. The presence of volume integrals, induced by the inherent physics of the thermo-elastic coupling, is addressed through a Dual Reciprocity Method (DRM), which allows recasting the formulation in terms of boundary integrals only. The developed methodology is applied for estimating the homogenized thermo-elastic constants of two widely employed ceramic materials. The method may find applications in multiscale analysis of polycrystalline structural component.