Modeling of wood-like cellular materials with a geometrical data extraction algorithm

An algorithm on geometrical data extraction, material reconstruction and numerical analysis is presented in order to reconstruct the actual wood-like cellular materials and investigate their linear elastic material behavior in the transverse plane under different loading conditions. The algorithm implemented by Mathematica technical computing software is used to read the pixel data of cellular material images with a wide range of material scales, e.g. from micro- to millimeter scale. As a result of this process, geometrical properties including cell wall thicknesses, cell connectivities, vertex and center coordinates are determined. Identified geometrical properties are transferred to Abaqus/CAE computer aided engineering software by using a Python script and also converted into stereolithography STL model format enabling prototype generation and visualization. As an application example, the reconstructed model by means of the algorithm was used to investigate the in-plane effective stiffness properties of Norway spruce earlywood specimens in the frameworks of homogenization and finite element analysis.