Micro- and meso-scale modeling of dental composite materials

Homogenization techniques can help to optimize composite materials. In this special PhD topic dental composite materials will be investigated. The main goal is, to optimize and improve the mechanical properties of these materials that consist of acrylate polymers and nanoparticles as fillers. One possibility is to change shape and geometric distribution of the fillers. This can be investigated at micro-scale by using homogenization to obtain the effective material parameters and direct computations to investigate material damage. The micro structure of the composite will be obtained by up-scaling of results obtained by the group of P. Behrens and M.A. Schneider who investigate the molecular structure composite. The results are then validated by means of experiments performed in the group of Dr. L. Borchers/Prof. M Stiesch.