Influence of Random Variation in Volume Fraction of Fiber on Stochastic Property of Equivalent Elastic Property of Unidirectional Fiber Reinforced Composite Material

Abstract

This paper describes stochastic analysis on a homogenized elastic property of a unidirectional fiber reinforced composite material considering uncertainty in material and geometrical properties of component materials. The influence of the microscopic uncertainties on the stochastic characteristics of a homogenized elastic property is analyzed with the perturbation-based analysis using the equivalent inclusion method. Especially, influence of a volume fraction variation on the stochastic characteristics is discussed in this paper. Also, as an example of a design considering the influence of a volume fraction variation, a limit of the random variation of the volume fraction of fiber for controlling a random variation of a homogenized elastic property of a composite to be less than random variations of elastic properties of component materials is discussed.

Validation of strain invariant failure analysis in an open hole off-axis specimen

“…1 There exists extensive literature on methods to include uncertainty in the analysis of composite laminates at the coupon level, for example, by introducing non-deterministic homogenized lamina moduli, 2 stochastic structure parameters, 3 and random loads. 4 Variability has also been included at the microscopic level to understand the effect of the random microstructure in the effective elastic moduli, [5][6][7][8] to study the effect of fiber strength statistics, 9,10 and matrix defects 11 in the fracture process. The incorporation of detailed informa-…”