Development of the RSA method for random short fiber reinforced elastomer composites with large fiber aspect ratios

Abstract

Two random sequential adsorption (RSA) methods for the generation of the representative volume element (RVE) were developed for the short fiber reinforced elastomer composites (SFECs) with large fiber aspect ratio. These two RSA methods use two different fiber intersection test methods respectively (the ‘straightforward method’ developed by Rahman and the method of Tian et al). Also, a new iteration method was developed to realize geometric periodicity. The maximum fiber fraction that can be reached by two RSA methods were obtained respectively and compared with the theoretical and experimental formulas by Evans and Gibson. The results show that the ‘straightforward method’ may result in misjudgments in some special cases, especially when the fiber aspect ratio is large. Therefore, the RSA method using the ‘straightforward method’ is not exactly a perfect RSA method. In contrast, there is no fiber overlap found in the RVEs established by the RSA method using the fiber intersection test method of Tian et al. Moreover, the maximum fiber volume fraction that can be generated by this RSA method is close to the theoretical limits when the fiber aspect ratio is larger than 50 and meets the requirement of common SFECs with large fiber aspect ratio. Therefore, the RSA method using the fiber intersection test method of Tian et al is considered to be suitable for the satisfactory generation of the RVE for SFECs with large fiber aspect ratios.