Short fiber composites: Computational homogenization vs orientation averaging

Paper in proceeding, 2019

Short Fibre Reinforced Composites (SFRCs) typically have a high strength to weight ratio. Also, manufacturing processes for these materials are low-cost, and high production rates can be achieved using these materials. Thus, SFRCs are being increasingly used in variety of applications such as the car industry. For SFRCs, different micro-structural parameters (in addition to the constitutive behaviour of the matrix and reinforcements), such as fibre volume fraction, fibre orientation distribution, fibre length distribution, fibre aspect ratios and fibre/matrix interface strength play important roles in the macroscopic mechanical behaviour. Hence, to have an accurate and reliable modelling approach, using multi-scale models is a natural choice. In this study, computational homogenization is used with realistic numerical Representative Volume Elements (RVEs). More importantly and due to the limitations of the first approach, a multi-scale model is developed for SFRCs based on an orientation averaging method.