A MICROMECHANICAL BASED BOUNDING AND ELASTIC PROPERTIES ESTIMATION OF MULTIPHASE POLYMERIC COMPOSITE MATERIALS

Abstract

The paper herein approaches a two step homogenization concept based on well known micromechanical theoretical models in order to predict the effective elastic properties of a new class of composite materials, namely the multiphase ones. The overall elastic properties for the particle-fibre particular case approached herein are bounded within inferior and superior limits, the later being retrieved using few theoretical models from the literature. Based on author’s experience, in case of particle reinforced composite materials, the Hashin-Shtrikman and Milton models encompass all the information on the geometry and distribution of the inclusions and are close related with the corresponding values retrieved experimentally. In the paper the fibres were considered randomly distributed leading to the use of the Halpin-Tsai theoretical model as the best option in the second step of the effective elastic properties estimation.