Representative volume element based micromechanical modelling of rod shaped glass filled epoxy composites

Abstract

In this study, Representative Volume Element based micromechanical modeling technique has been implemented to assess the mechanical properties of glass filled epoxy composites. Rod shaped glass fillers having an aspect ratio of 80 were used for preparing the epoxy composite. The three-dimensional unit cell model of representative volume element was prepared with finite element analysis tool ANSYS 19 using the periodic square and hexagonal array with an assumption that there is a perfect bonding between the filler and the epoxy matrix. Results revealed that the tensile modulus increases and Poisson’s ratio decreases with increase in the volume fraction of the filler. To study the effect of filler volume fraction, the pulse echo techniques were used to experimentally measure the tensile modulus and Poisson’s ratio for 5% to 15% volume fraction of the filler. A good agreement was found between the RVE based predicted values and the experimental results.