Effective elastic properties of solids with irregularly shaped inclusions

Abstract

A unit rectangular cell is usually cut out from a medium for investigating fracture mechanism and elastic properties of the medium containing an array of irregularly shaped inclusions. It is desirable to clarify the geometrical parameters controlling the elastic properties of heterogeneous materials because they are usually embedded with randomly distributed particulate. The stress and strain relationship of the rectangular cell is obtained by an ad hoc hybrid-stress finite element method. By matching the boundary condition requirements, the effective elastic properties of composite materials are then calculated, and the effect of shape and arrangement of inclusions on the effective elastic properties is subsequently considered by the application of the ad hoc hybrid-stress finite element method through examining three types of rectangular cell models assuming rectangular arrays of rectangular or diamond inclusions. It is found that the area fraction (the ratio of the inclusion area over the rectangular cell area) is one dominant parameter controlling the effective elastic properties.