A generalized plane strain meshless local Petrov-Galerkin method for the micromechanics of thermomechanical loading of composites

Abstract

A generalized plane strain micromechanical model is developed to predict the behavior of a unidirectional fiber-reinforced composite subjected to combined thermal and mechanical loads. An appropriate meshless local Petrov-Galerkin formulation is presented for the solution of the governing partial differential equations of the problem. To reduce computation time, a unit step function is employed as test function. A direct method is presented for enforcement of the continuity of displacement and traction at the fiber-matrix interface to model the fully bonded interface. Results of this study revealed that the model provides highly accurate predictions with relatively small number of nodes. Numerical results for glass/epoxy and SiC/Ti composites subjected to thermomechanical loading show that predictions for both local and global responses of the composites are in good agreement with results of theoretical, experimental and finite element methods. © 2010 Journal of Mechanics of Materials and Structures. All rights reserved.