Modeling and Evaluation of the Thermo-mechanical Behavior of Filter Materials and Filter Structures

To capture and predict the chemo-thermo-mechanical behavior of ceramic foam filters, material models and simulation tools are required. The description of the thermo-mechanical inelastic behavior as well as the in-situ layer formation on reactive filters have been the aims of this subproject. Challenging aspects in the whole progress are the exact geometrical replication of the underlying foam structure of the filter and the lack of experimental data for many relevant loading cases. The software FoamGUI is developed to generate parametrized, periodic three-dimensional representative volume elements (RVE) of foam structures, which are used in continuum and fluid mechanical simulations as well as for 3D-printing. Calculation concepts are formulated to predict the inelastic deformation and failure behavior of ceramic open-cell foams under thermo-mechanical loading. First-order homogenization approaches are used to conclude from the mesoscopic behavior of the foam RVE to the macroscopic response of filter structures. A hybrid approach is developed in the established framework of rate-independent plasticity in combination with neural networks, which replace the plastic flow potential and the evolution equations of internal state variables. Another modeling aspect is motivated by the experimentally observed growth of an in situ layer during the so-called reactive phase of the filtration process. This phenomenon motivates the development of a model to describe diffusion, chemical reactions and phase transition processes of multi-phase/multi-component systems using the phase-field method. This allows the simulation of spatially and temporally resolved microstructure evolution leading to the layer formation.