Controlling spatial inhomogeneity in prototypical multiphase microstructures

Abstract: A wide variety of real random composites can be studied by means of prototypes of multiphase microstructures with a controllable spatial inhomogeneity. To create them, we propose a versatile model of randomly overlapping super-spheres of a given radius and deformed in their shape by the parameter p. With the help of the so-called decomposable entropic measure, a clear dependence of the phase inhomogeneity degree on the values of the parameter p is found. Thus, a leading trend in changes of the phase inhomogeneity can be forecast. It makes searching for possible structure/property relations easier. For the chosen values of p, examples of two and three-phase prototypical microstructures show how the phase inhomogeneity degree evolves at different length scales. The approach can also be applied to preparing the optimal starting configurations in reconstructing real materials.