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Three-dimensional micromechanical assessment of bio-inspired composites with non-uniformly dispersed inclusions

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1-s2.0-S0263822318329532-main.pdf (2.33 MB)

Date

2019-03-15

Authors

Bahmani, Aram
Li, Geng
Willett, Thomas L
Montesano, John

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Elsevier

Abstract

Bio-inspired composites with hexagonal platelet and cylindrical inclusions were studied. A novel algorithm termed staggered hardcore algorithm (SHCA) was used to rapidly generate 3D periodic representative volume elements (RVE) for bio-inspired composites with staggered non-uniformly dispersed inclusions. The spatial dispersions of inclusions in these generated RVEs were assessed using autocorrelation analysis, demonstrating the effectiveness of the SHCA algorithm. Orthotropic elastic properties of two different bio-inspired composites were computed and compared with analytical models, namely modified shear-lag, Mori-Tanaka and Halpin-Tsai, as well as available experimental data from the literature. For lower inclusion volume fractions, the computed results correlated well with experimental data and the analytical results. However, for higher inclusion volume fractions and aspect ratios the analytical results diverged, particularly Mori-Tanaka and modified shear-lag models which was similarly reported in previous studies. The capabilities of the computational model were further demonstrated through a comparative study of orthotropic elastic constants for the cylindrical and hexagonal inclusion composites. The study revealed the necessity to use 3D micromechanical models with realistic inclusion dispersions for accurately assessing the response of high inclusion volume fraction bio-inspired composites.

Description

The final publication is available at Elsevier via https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compstruct.2019.01.056 © 2019. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Keywords

bio-inspired composites, representative volume element (RVE), non-uniformly dispersed inclusions, staggered microstructures, 3d orthotropic elastic response

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Citation

URI

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compstruct.2019.01.056
 http://hdl.handle.net/10012/14666

Collections

Waterloo Research
Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering
Systems Design Engineering