Abstract
A multilevel and multiscale approach was presented for woven-fabric composites, especially for plain-weave composites, to compute effective coefficients of thermal expansion (CTE) as well as thermal stresses at the fiber and matrix level. The approach consisted of three modules: fiber-strand, strand-fabric, and lamination modules. The present study developed the strand-fabric module for thermal analysis because other modules had already been developed previously. In addition, detailed finite-element analysis was conducted for plain-weave woven fabric composites. The finite-element models contained discrete representative fibers. Then the analytical results were compared to the finite-element analysis results for both CTEs and microthermal stresses. Two different composite materials (glass/epoxy and boron/epoxy) and different fiber volume fractions were considered in the study. Generally, the analytical results compared very well with the finite-element analysis results, which used more than 100,000 three-dimensional brick elements. Thermal stresses were computed at the fiber and matrix level; those stresses affect damage and failure of composites.
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