Effective elastic moduli of fiber-reinforced composites with interfacial displacement and stress jumps

Abstract

The generalized self-consistent method (GSCM) is applied to obtain the closed-form estimates for the 5 elastic moduli of a transversely isotropic composite consisting of an isotropic matrix reinforced by unidirectional isotropic fibers of circular cross-section. The interfaces between the matrix and the fibers in this composite are taken to be imperfect and characterized by the general elastic isotropic model which includes as particular cases the widely used elastic spring-layer and membrane-type imperfect interface models. The displacement, strain and stress fields in an infinite homogeneous medium containing a composite cylinder with a general imperfect interface and subjected to each of 4 elementary remote uniform loadings are specified and used in deriving the estimates for the effective elastic moduli. These results extend and bridge the special relevant results reported in the literature for fiber-reinforced composites with imperfect interfaces characterized by the spring-layer or membrane-type imperfect interface model. Numerical examples are also given to illustrate some results.