Linking microstructure and properties through a predictive multiresolution continuum Original Research Article

Under the sponsorship of the NSF/Sandia Life Cycle Science-based Engineering Program, the Sandia Predictive Science Program, and the ONR Digital 3D (D3D) program, a multiresolution continuum theory [C. McVeigh, F. Vernerey, W.K. Liu, L.C. Brinson, Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 195 (2006) 5053] is developed to predict material response when spatial and temporal microstructure evolution gives rise to severely inhomogeneous deformation at multiple scales. The proposed theory is applied by concurrently homogenizing the microstructure at each characteristic length scale associated with the inhomogeneous response. A continuum-microstructure work rate equivalence approach is used to develop a set of continuum partial differential governing equations, in terms of multiresolution microstresses (and couple microstresses). Constitutive models relating to each microstress are determined from numerical microstructure models.