On the generalized method of cells and the prediction of effective elastic properties of polymer bonded explosives

TL;DR

This paper evaluates the generalized method of cells (GMC) for predicting the elastic properties of polymer bonded explosives, demonstrating its efficiency and accuracy under certain conditions compared to direct numerical simulations.

Contribution

The study assesses GMC's applicability to high-volume-fraction, high-contrast particulate composites, extending its known use to polymer bonded explosives.

Findings

GMC provides accurate estimates for composites with less than 60% volume fraction.

GMC is computationally more efficient than finite element analysis.

Effective moduli predictions are reliable for specific particle arrangements and contrasts.

Abstract

The prediction of the effective elastic properties of polymer bonded explosives using direct numerical simulations is computationally expensive because of the high volume fraction of particles in these particulate composites ($\sim$0.90) and the strong modulus contrast between the particles and the binder ($\sim$20,000). The generalized method of cells (GMC) is an alternative to direct numerical simulations for the determination of effective elastic properties of composites. GMC has been shown to be more computationally efficient than finite element analysis based approaches for a range of composites. In this investigation, the applicability of GMC to the determination of effective elastic properties of polymer bonded explosives is explored. GMC is shown to generate excellent estimates of effective moduli for composites containing square arrays of disks at volume fractions less than 0.60 and a modulus contrast of approximately 100.