Microstructural design of tunable elastoplastic two-phase random heterogeneous materials

•An integrated methodology for the design of complex-microstructure heterogeneous elastoplastic materials.•FFT-based formulation combining reconstruction and homogenization steps.•Flexible controlling of the directionality of the microstructure.•Applications in design of complex microstructure such as nanoporous gold (NPG) with tunable directional elastoplastic properties.•Demonstrated the relationship between directional elastoplastic properties of NPG and the percolation of its phases We present an integrated methodology for the design of complex-microstructure heterogeneous elastoplastic materials. Our formulation uniquely combines classically separated reconstruction and homogenization steps by relying on multipoint correlation functions and fast Fourier transformation (FFT). The method is uniquely flexible in controlling the directionality of the microstructure. We also present the application of the method in the design of advanced heterogeneous nanoporous gold (NPG) with tunable directional elastoplastic. We then demonstrate a simple trick to extend the method to anisotropic media. Despite the detailed resolution of micromechanical quantities, such as the statistics of strain fields, the method is compelling in exploring the correlations between macroscopic properties and microstructural topology of the two-phase random heterogeneous media. We further demonstrate the application of the method in understanding the relationship between directional elastoplastic properties of NPG and the state of the percolation of its phases.