Computational design of biopolymer aerogels and predictive modelling of their nanostructure and mechanical behaviour.

ABSTRACT: To address the challenge of reconstructing or designing the three-dimensional microstructure of nanoporous materials, we develop a computational approach by combining the random closed packing of polydisperse spheres together with the Laguerre-Voronoi tessellation. Open-porous cellular network structures that adhere to the real pore-size distributions of the nanoporous materials are generated. As an example, κ-carrageenan aerogels are considered. The mechanical structure-property relationships are further explored by means of finite elements. Here we show that one can predict the macroscopic stress-strain curve of the bulk porous material if only the pore-size distributions, solid fractions, and Young's modulus of the pore-wall fibres are known a priori. The objective of such reconstructio

SUBMITTER: Chandrasekaran R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8119483 | biostudies-literature | 2021 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature