An explicit expression of the effective moduli for composite materials filled with coated inclusions

Abstract

The obvious shortcoming of the generalized self-consistent method (GSCM) is that the effective shear modulus of composite materials estimated by the method can not be expressed in an explicit form. This is inconvenient in engineering applications. In order to overcome that shortcoming of GSCM, a reformation of GSCM is made and a new micromechanical scheme is suggested in this paper. By means of this new scheme, both the effective bulk and shear moduli of an inclusion-matrix composite material can be obtained and be expressed in simple explicit forms. A comparison with the existing models and the rigorous Hashin-Shtrikman bounds demonstrates that the present scheme is accurate. By a two-step homogenization technique from the present new scheme, the effective moduli of the composite materials with coated spherical inclusions are obtained and can also be expressed in an explicit form. The comparison with the existing theoretical and experimental results shows that the present solutions are satisfactory. Moreover, a quantitative comparison of GSCM and the Mori-Tanaka method (MTM) is made based on a unified scheme.