A Simple Method and Program for the Analysis of the Microstructure-Stiffness Interrelations of Composite Materials

Abstract

A simple efficient method for the estimation of stiffness of materials with arbitrarily complex and irregular microstructures is developed on the basis of a combination of Reuss and Voigt estimates for the stiffness of a composite. A program which designs complex microstructures as an array of cells in an interactive session, and then estimates the Young’s modulus of designed arbitrary microstructures is developed. A combined Reuss-Voigt model is developed for the calculation of Young’s modulus of bilayers with inclined interfaces. A subroutine, which links the developed program and the commercial FE codes and allows the automatic generation of micromechanical finite element models of the designed microstructures is built-in in the program. Using this model, the effect of the smoothness of the transition region in graded composites on the stiffness of the materials is studied. It is shown that the stiffness of graded composites increases with increasing the smoothness of the transition region between the phases.

Keywords

stiffness composite damage microstructure

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