A Multi-Scale Homogenization Procedure for the Estimation of Young’s Modulus of Porous Materials by a Multi-Void Shape Model

Transversal cross-section pores of lotus-type porous materials are generally considered circular; however, they exhibit various pore geometries, which affect their effective properties. The main objective of this work is to develop a generalized model which allows estimating the effective Young’s modulus of multi-void shape porous microstructures by exploiting a relationship developed to evaluate the effective Young’s modulus of porous materials with single-void shape. A procedure based on free software is then proposed to allow the application of the proposed generalized model on real lotus-type porous material images to estimate the effective Young’s modulus. The free tool allows the processing of real porous materials images to obtain multi-void shape microstructures and their pores parameters data. The validation of the generalized model has been established by confronting the obtained results with experimental data taken from literature; an excellent agreement was observed. Therefore, it can be concluded that the proposed procedure associated with the generalized model can be used efficiently for predicting the effective Young’s modulus of the multi-void porous materials, particularly lotus-type porous materials.