Effect of void sizes on effective material properties of unidirectional composite materials

Abstract

In this study, the effect of different void sizes with different void contents are investigated on all coefficients of constitutive coefficients for unidirectional composites. The unidirectional composite can be assumed as a periodic structure. To fulfill this requirement, unit cells with different void contents and different void sizes are simulated. To capture the real effect of void sizes, the unit cells are modeled with different uniform void sizes with a fixed percentage of void content. To quantify all coefficients of material properties in presence of voids, the periodic boundary conditions are applied to the unit cells. The average stresses and strains are obtained using ANSYS interface. The results showed that in the fixed percentage of void content, constitutive coefficients degraded more with the smaller void sizes.