Abstract

This paper presents a numerical investigation of the material elastic properties for short-length mostly in-plane random fiber composites, based on microscale geometrical modeling. The particular case considered is that of materials in which the majority of fibers’ orientations are contained or slightly deviate from a dominant plane. Representative volume elements for two types of random fiber composite material geometries with different fiber aspect ratios and volume fractions are generated using a novel technique. The elastic properties of the equivalent homogeneous material are determined using direct three-dimensional finite element analysis. A windowing-type analysis is employed to investigate the influence of the fiber distribution homogeneity on the homogenized elastic properties. The results are compared and validated using two alternative approaches — first, by orientation averaging of the stiffness tensor of the equivalent unidirectional composite determined by direct FEM analysis and, second, by employing the laminated random strand method.

Keywords

random fiber reinforced composite, representative volume element, homogenization, finite element analysis

Authors