Prediction of the Modulus of Elasticity of Short Fibre Reinforced Polymer Composites by Finite Element Modelling

Recently, there has been increased interest in fibre-reinforced polymer composites, due to their distinctive specific strength, corrosion resistance and fatigue resistance, as well as high damping characteristics. In this paper, finite-element models for the prediction of the modulus of elasticity of short-fibre reinforced composites (SFRC) are introduced. The stiffness of a structure is of principal importance in many engineering applications and the modulus of elasticity is often one of the primary properties considered when selecting a material. In the developed models, different factors affecting the overall performance of such composites are considered. These factors include the respective volume fractions of the polymer matrix and fibrous reinforcement, fibre orientation and agglomeration. Three finite-element models with different sophistication levels are proposed. The models are validated by comparing the effective modulus of elasticity predicted by the different models to experimental results obtained by tensile testing SFRC samples consisting of glass fibres in a polypropylene matrix at different volume fractions.