Mechanics of biopolymer aerogels based on microstructures generated from 2-d Voronoi tessellations

Abstract

In this paper, the heterogeneous morphology of biopolymer aerogels is described using a 2-d Voronoi tessellation, which accounts for the randomized cell shapes of aerogels and adheres to the pore-size distributions obtained from experimental data. Accordingly, a two-dimensional periodic representative volume element (RVE) has been generated and simulated under compression. In particular, the sensitivity of the varying microstructural parameters within the RVE is analyzed. It is realized that the fiber diameter, the pore-size distribution, and the density of the cells within the aerogel network show a significant influence on their mechanical response. The trends of the model predictions are qualitatively in good agreement with the macroscopic experimental data of biopolymer aerogels.