An explicit macro-micro phase-averaged stress correlation for particle-enhanced composite materials in loaded structures

Abstract

In many structural applications, there is growing industrial interest in using new microscale particle-enhanced composite materials. During the design development of such machinery and materials it is advantageous to ascertain the stress load-sharing between the added particles and the binding matrix, in order to make estimates of the device’s useful life and the material performance. Accordingly, in this work, we correlate the phase-averaged microstructural stress levels caried by the particles and matrix to the macrostructural loading. Model problems are studied whereby macroscale stresses are determined using a structural-scale model and the microscale stresses are then computed by constructing stress concentration functions. This provides analysts with a novel and easy to use design framework that clearly identifies the stress contributions from the microscale and the macroscale, in order to reduce product development time and costs. Examples are provided to illustrate the approach.