Effect of Fiber Geometry and Representative Volume Element on Elastic and Thermal Properties of Unidirectional Fiber-Reinforced Composites

Abstract

The aim of present work is focused on the evaluation of elastic and thermal properties of unidirectional fiber-reinforced polymer composites with different volume fractions of fiber up to 0.7 using micromechanical approach. Two ways for calculating the material properties, that is, analytical and numerical approaches, were presented. In numerical approach, finite element analysis was used to evaluate the elastic modulus and thermal conductivity of composite from the constituent material properties. The finite element model based on three-dimensional micromechanical representative volume element (RVE) with a square and hexagonal packing geometry was implemented by using finite element code ANSYS. Circular cross section of fiber and square cross section of fiber were considered to develop RVE. The periodic boundary conditions are applied to the RVE to calculate elastic modulus of composite. The steady state heat transfer simulations were performed in thermal analysis to calculate thermal conductivity of composite. In analytical approach, the elastic modulus is calculated by rule of mixture, Halpin-Tsai model, and periodic microstructure. Thermal conductivity is calculated analytically by using rule of mixture, the Chawla model, and the Hashin model. The material properties obtained using finite element techniques were compared with different analytical methods and good agreement was achieved. The results are affected by a number of parameters such as volume fraction of the fibers, geometry of fiber, and RVE.