Evaluation of the Coefficient of Thermal Expansion of Constituents in Composite Materials using anInverse Analysis Scheme

Abstract

Abstract In this paper, we propose an evaluation scheme of the coefficients of thermal expansion (CTE) of constituents in composite materials using an inverse analysis. The size of constituents typically is about a few micrometers, which makes the identification of material properties difficult as well as the measurement results inaccurate. The proposed inverse analysis scheme, which is combined with the Mori-Tanaka method for predicting an equivalent CTE of composite materials, provides the CTE of the constituents in a straightforward manner by minimizing the cost function defined in lamina scale with the steepest descent method. To demonstrate the effectiveness and accuracy of the proposed scheme, the CTEs of several fibers (glass fiber, P75, P100, and M55J) embedded in matrix are evaluated and compared with experimental results. Furthermore, we discuss the effects of uncertainty of laminar and matrix properties on the prediction of fiber properties. Keywords :composite materials, CTE(coefficient of thermal expansion), Mori-Tanaka method, inverse analysis scheme