Finite element modeling of porous microstructures with random holes of different-shapes and -sizes to predict their effective elastic behavior

Abstract

Porous materials are promising media for designing medical instruments, drug carriers, and bioimplants because of their excellent biocompatibility, ease of design, and large variation of elastic moduli. In this study, a computational strategy using the finite element method is developed to model the porous microstructures and to predict the relevant elastic moduli considering the actual characteristics of the micropores and their distributions. First, an element-based approach is presented to generate pores of different shapes and sizes according to the experimental observations. Then, a computational scheme to evaluate the effective moduli of macroscopically isotropic porous materials based on their micro-mechanics is introduced. Next, the accuracy of our approach is verified with the analytical solutions of the extreme bounds of the elastic isotropic moduli of a simplified model and with the experimental data available in the literature. Finally, the influence of the shape of pores and their distribution modes are assessed.