Prediction of elastic modulus of polymer composites using Hashin–Shtrikman bound, mean field homogenization and finite element technique

Abstract

Polymer matrix composites are developed by reinforcing biodegradable rubber seed shell, cashew nut shell and walnut shell powder in epoxy resin. Theoretically, elastic modulus is calculated using Hashin–Shtrikman bounds using variational principles. Investigation of the elastic modulus of the composites is extended by varying filler weight up to 25% in Digimat 2017-MF which applies Mori–Tanaka mean field homogenization and ANSYS 15.0 Workbench which uses a three-dimensional model of representative volume element having spherical shaped filler particles to calculate elastic modulus. Elastic modulus is the measurement of resistance of the material under tensile load. The corresponding stress–strain relationship predicts the stiffness of the material. The results are confirmed with experimentation approach for 5% wt filler content. Elastic modulus obtained from these approaches show a maximum error of 7% with experiment results. Investigation further reveals that elastic modulus of composites increases with increase in weight fraction of fillers. However, above 15% wt of filler content, no significant increase in the elastic modulus of the composites is observed.

Fracture and mechanical behavior of vacuum-assisted microwave cured unidirectional carbon woven fabric reinforced epoxy composite

“…It is used for material modeling and the analysis of the multi-scale structure. 30 The microstructure of heterogeneous material generally consists of matrix material and other phases as the inclusion which can belong to fibers, platelets, voids, etc. The prediction of interaction between microscopic and macroscopic properties is done by using micromechanical modeling.…”

Manufacturing and Characterisation of Polymeric Membranes for Water Treatment and Numerical Investigation of Mechanics of Nanocomposite Membranes

“…Among other methods reported in the literature that improve the mechanical properties of polymeric membranes, the addition of inorganic particles into the polymeric matrix provides an easy, effective, and economical solution which also increases the permeability of the membranes [15][16][17][18]. The modulus of elasticity and tensile strength of polymeric materials can significantly increase even with the addition of very little amount of inorganic reinforcement [19,20]. In these studies, nanomaterials such as (GO) [21], zinc oxide (ZnO) [22], titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ) [23], aluminium oxide (Al 2 O 3 ) [24], carbon nanotube (CNT) [25,26], HNT [27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37], and SiO 2 [38][39][40][41][42][43][44] are used to improve the mechanical strength of polymer-based membranes as well as the other functional properties of the membranes.…”

“…On the other hand, performing experiments during the preparation of nanocomposite materials is a time and resource-consuming process. In this context, numerical simulation methods play an important role in the development of reliable nanocomposite materials [20,45,46]. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate the mechanical properties of the membranes under similar conditions to their operating environment [7].…”

Mesoscale modeling and biocompatibility of nano-hydroxyapatite reinforced ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene composite

“…Lala et al predicted the elastic modulus of particulate reinforced epoxy composite. 32 Daramola et al conducted multi-scale modeling of epoxy/clay composite. 33 The predicted results were also validated experimentally.…”