Absolute effective elastic constants of composite materials

Abstract

The objective is to determine the mechanical properties of the composites formed in two types, theoretically. The first composite includes micro-particles in a matrix while the second involves long, thin fibers. A fictitious, homogeneous, linear-elastic and isotropic single material named as effective material is considered during calculation which is based on the equality of the strain energies of the composite and effective material under the same loading conditions. The procedure is carried out with volume integrals considering a unique strain energy in a body. Particularly, the effective elastic shear modulus has been calculated exactly for small-particle composites by the same procedure in order to determine of bulk modulus thereof. Additionally, the transverse shear modulus of fiber reinforced composites has been obtained through a simple approach leading to the practical equation. The results have been compared not only with the outcomes in the literature obtained by different method but also with those of finite element analysis performed in this study.