Impact of the geometry of inclusions at the micro-scale on the overall stochastic properties

In this contribution, the establishment of relationships between the microstructure of the material and the macroscopic properties is numerically investigated. The material under study is composed by inclusions randomly distributed on a uniform matrix and its heterogeneous nature is characterized by the size, shape, spatial distribution and properties of the inclusions. To conduct these analyses, a general framework that generates and simulates representative volume elements (RVEs) based on the commercial finite element (FEM) software ABAQUS and existing homogenization techniques is developed. Two and three-dimensional RVEs are generated and the variation of the properties investigated using a statistical approach.