Scaling behaviour of strength of 3D-, semi-flexible-, cross-linked fibre network

Journal article, 2019

Anisotropic, semi-flexible, cross-linked, random fibre networks are ubiquitous both in nature and in a wide variety of industrial materials. Modelling mechanical properties of such networks have been done extensively in terms of criticality, mechanical stability, and scaling of network stiffnesses with structural parameters, such as density. However, strength of the network has received much less attention. In this work we have constructed 3D-planar fibre networks where fibres are, more or less, oriented in the in-plane direction, and we have investigated the scaling of network strength with density. Instead of modelling fibres as 1D element (e.g., a beam element with stretching, bending and/or shear stiffnesses), we have treated fibres as a 3D-entity by considering the features like twisting stiffness, transverse stiffness, and finite cross-link (or bond) strength in different deformation modes. We have reconfirmed the previous results of elastic modulus in the literature that, with increasing density, the network modulus indeed undergoes a transition from bending-dominated deformation to stretching-dominated with continuously varying scaling exponent. Network strength, on the other hand, scales with density with a constant exponent, i.e., showing no obvious transition phenomena. Using material parameters for wood fibres, we have found that the predicted results for stiffness and strength agree very well with experimental data of fibre networks of varying densities reported in the literature