Asymptotic fiber orientation states of the quadratically closed Folgar–Tucker equation and a subsequent closure improvement

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Anisotropic fiber-reinforced composites are used in lightweight construction, which is of great industrial relevance. During mold filling of fiber suspensions, the microstructural evolution of the local fiber arrangement and orientation distribution is determined by the local velocity gradient. Based on the Folgar–Tucker equation, which describes the evolution of the second-order fiber orientation tensor in terms of the velocity gradient, the present study addresses selected states of deformation rates that can locally occur in complex flow fields. For such homogeneous flows, exact solutions for the asymptotic fiber orientation states are derived and discussed based on the quadratic closure. In contrast to the existing literature, the derived exact solutions take into account the fiber-fiber interaction. The analysis of the asymptotic solutions relying upon the common quadratic closure shows disadvantages with respect to the predicted material symmetry, namely, the anisotropy is overestimated for strong fiber-fiber interaction. This motivates us to suggest a novel normalized fully symmetric quadratic closure. Two versions of this new closure are derived regarding the prediction of anisotropic properties and the fiber orientation evolution. The fiber orientation states determined with the new closure approach show an improved prediction of anisotropy in both effective viscous and elastic composite behaviors. In addition, the symmetrized quadratic closure has a simple structure that reduces the effort in numerical implementation compared to more elaborated closure schemes.