Direct method-based statistical limit analysis of wc-co composites

In this paper, a direct method-based prediction of load-bearing capacity of nonperiodic WC-Co composites is presented. The main goal is to generalize the methodology of limit analysis on periodic heterogeneous media to materials with random microstructures. For such materials, the admissible macroscopic loading domains demonstrate remarkable scatter among RVE models of identical size and constituents but different morphologies. Limit analysis is performed on samples of a group of RVE models converted automatically from scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images. The corresponding admissible loading domains are numerically determined and statistically interpreted. The obtained results for plastic limit loads by direct method are compared with those from conventional incremental analysis.