Two-Dimensional Virtual Microstructure Generation of Particle-Reinforced Composites

This paper describes the development and validation of a virtual microstructure generator that can be used to fabricate a virtual, two-dimensional (2D) microstructure of particle-reinforced composites in general, and of asphalt concrete and/or cement concrete mixtures in particular. In the generator, some core geometric characteristics such as aggregate gradation, aggregate volume fraction, and angularity were used to transform data from a three-dimensional (3D) mixture into its 2D microstructure. Resulting virtual microstructures were then compared with real cross-sectional microstructure images obtained from actual samples for validation. Comparison aided with statistical analyses presented a good agreement between the virtual and real microstructures, which demonstrates that the 3D-2D transformation algorithms were properly developed and implemented into the virtual microstructure generator. A properly generated virtual microstructure of the composites can be incorporated with computational microstructure modeling which leads to significant time and cost savings from expensive laboratory fabrication and testing of actual specimens.