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Computer simulation of the damage evolution of fiber‐reinforced polypropylene‐matrix composites with matrix defects
Author(s) -
Li Hongzhou,
Jia Yuxi,
Mamtimin Geni,
Jiang Wei,
An Lijia
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
journal of applied polymer science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.575
H-Index - 166
eISSN - 1097-4628
pISSN - 0021-8995
DOI - 10.1002/app.23965
Subject(s) - composite material , materials science , finite element method , ultimate tensile strength , polypropylene , fiber , matrix (chemical analysis) , composite number , representative elementary volume , volume fraction , stress (linguistics) , structural engineering , microstructure , linguistics , philosophy , engineering
The damage evolution of fiber‐reinforced polypropylene‐matrix composites with matrix defects was studied via a Monte Carlo technique combined with a finite element method. A finite element model was constructed to predict the effects of various matrix defect shapes on the stress distributions. The results indicated that a small matrix defect had almost no effect on fiber stress distributions other than interfacial shear stress distributions. Then, a finite element model with a statistical distribution of the fiber strength was constructed to investigate the influences of the spatial distribution and the volume fraction of matrix defects on composite failure. The results showed that it was accurate to use the shear‐lag models and Green's function methods to predict the tensile strength of composites even though the axial stresses in the matrix were neglected. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 103: 64–71, 2007