FE-analysis of Wooden Cultural Heritage Objects at Transient Hygro-mechanical Long-term Loading Using Time Homogenisation
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The analysis of the hygro-mechanically coupled structural behaviour of wooden cultural heritage objects presents a significant challenge due to the complex nature of wood, which exhibits hygroscopic and history-dependent properties. Numerical simulation of time-dependent processes over long time-scales is computationally demanding, given the disparate time scales of mechanical loads, climate changes, and structural responses such as short-term elasticity, fracture, and long-term creep. Conducting fully transient investigations at the shortest scale would incur substantial computational costs. This study explores the application of time homogenisation techniques to wooden structures under transient multi-physical load cases. While time homogenisation has been successfully applied to other material classes and phenomena, such as cyclic loading of thermoplastics [4] and asphalt pavement under repeated traffic loads [1, 2], this research introduces time homogenisation for wooden structures with periodic loadings and structural responses at different time scales. A material model incorporating anisotropic short-term elasticity, hygroexpansion, long-term viscous creep, and mechano-sorptive behaviour is employed alongside a multi-Fickian moisture transport model (see [3]). This contribution presents initial results and discussions on the efficiency of time homogenisation, offering insights into its potential for reliable and efficient simulation of wooden structures under long-term loading conditions.
