Modeling and Simulation of the Aggregation and the Structural and Mechanical Properties of Silica Aerogels

Mechanical properties of aerogels are controlled by the connectivity of their network. In this paper, in order to study these properties, computational models of silica aerogels with different morphological entities have been generated by means of the diffusion-limited cluster-cluster aggregation (DLCA) algorithm. New insights into the influence of the model parameters on the generated aerogel structures and on the finite deformation under mechanical loads are provided. First, the structural and fractal properties of the modeled aerogels are investigated. The dependence of morphological properties such as the particle radius and density on these properties is studied. The results are correlated with experimental small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) data of a silica aerogel. The DLCA models of silica aerogels are analyzed for their mechanical properties with finite element simulations. There, the aerogel particles are modeled as nodes and the interparticle bonds as beam elements to account for bond stretching, bending, and torsion. The scaling relation between the elastic moduli E and relative density ρ, E ∝ ρ, is investigated and the exponent m = 3.61 is determined. Backbone paths evidently appear in the 3-d network structure under deformation, while the majority of the bonds in the network do not bear loads. The sensitivity of particle neck-sizes on the mechanical properties is also studied. All the results are shown to be qualitatively as well as quantitatively in agreement with the experimental data or with the available literature.