Multi-scale studies of foamed materials

We propose a multi-scale study to predict micro-buckling that could happen in foamed
materials. At the macroscopic scale, when localization occurs, the characteristic size of macroscopic deformation is the same order of the microscopic size. The assumption of material action in standard multi-scale computational homogenization approach where the stress only depends on the strain at this point is no-longer suitable, which motivates the uses of the second-order scheme. In this work, an implementation of the second-order continuum based on a discontinuous Galerkin approximation is shown to be particularly efficient to constrain
weakly the continuities of the displacement field and of its gradient. At the microscopic scale, classical finite element resolutions of RVEs are considered. To enforce the periodic boundary condition of this micro problem, we propose an efficient method, which is based on the polynomial interpolation, and allows applying the periodic
boundary condition without requiring conformal meshes. The micro-macro transition follows the second-order computational homogenization scheme.
With the proposed framework it is shown that, during the macroscopic loading, the micro-
buckling of the thin components of the foamed structure (cell walls and edges) can occur
even if the tangent modulus of micro-material is still elliptic since the homogenized tangent
modulus at macro-scale can lose its ellipticity. In that case, the localization occurs at macro-
scale and can be captured by the model.