Evaluation of effective material properties of randomly distributed short cylindrical fiber composites using a numerical homogenization technique

Abstract

In this paper effective material properties of randomly distributed short fiber composites are calculated with a developed comprehensive tool for numerical homogenization. We focus on the influence of change in volume fraction and length/diameter aspect ratio of fibers. Two types of fiber alignments are considered: fiber orientations with arbitrary angles and parallel oriented fibers. The algorithm is based on a numerical homogenization technique using a unit cell model in connection with the finite element method. To generate the three-dimensional unit cell models with randomly distributed short cylindrical fibers, a modified random sequential adsorption algorithm is used, which we describe in detail. For verification of the algorithm and checking the influence of different parameters, unit cells with various fiber embeddings are created. Numerical results are also compared with those from analytical methods.