Ultra-high temperature ceramics (UHTCs) are a class of materials that maintain their structural integrity at high temperatures, e.g. 2000 °C. They have been limited in their aerospace applications because of their relatively high density and the difficulty involved in forming them into complex shapes, like leading edges and inlets. Recent advanced processing techniques have made significant headway in addressing these challenges, where the introduction of multiscale porosity has resulted in lightweight UHTCs dubbed multiscale porous UHTCs. The effect of multiscale porosity on material properties must be characterized to enable design, but doing so experimentally can be costly, especially when attempting to replicate hypersonic flight conditions for relevant testing of selected candidate samples. As such, this dissertation seeks to computationally characterize the thermomechanical properties of multiscale porous UHTCs, specifically titanium diboride, and validate those results against experimental results so as to build confidence in the model. An implicit quasi-static variant of the Material Point Method (MPM) is developed, whose capabilities include intrinsic treatment of large deformations and contact which are needed to capture the complex material behavior of the as-simulated porous UHTC microstructures. It is found that the MPM can successfully obtain the elastic thermomechanical properties of multiscale porous UHTCs over a wide range of temperatures. Furthermore, characterizations of post-elastic behavior are found to be qualitatively consistent with data obtained from uniaxial compression experiments and Brazilian disk experiments. / Doctor of Philosophy / This dissertation explores a class of materials called ultra-high temperature ceramics (UHTCs). These materials can sustain very high temperatures without degrading, and thus have the potential to be used on hypersonic aircraft which routinely experience high temperatures during flight. In lieu of performing experiments on physical UHTC specimens, one can perform a series of computer simulations to figure out how UHTCs behave under various conditions. This is done here, with a particular focus what happens when pores are introduced into UHTCs, thus rendering them more like a sponge than a solid block of material. Doing computer simulations instead of physical experiments is attractive because of the flexibility one has in a computational environment, as well as the significantly decreased cost associated with running a simulation vs. setting up and performing an experiment. This is especially true when considering challenging operating environments like those experienced by high-speed aircraft. The ultimate goal with this research is to develop a computational tool than can be used to design the ideal distribution of pores in UHTCs so that they can best perform their intended functions.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/112387 |
| Date | 14 May 2021 |
| Creators | Povolny, Stefan Jean-Rene L. |
| Contributors | Aerospace and Ocean Engineering, Seidel, Gary D., Kapania, Rakesh K., Patil, Mayuresh J., Tallon Galdeano, Carolina |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Dissertation |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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