Mechanical analysis of 3-D braided composites by the finite multiphase element method

A finite multiphase element method (FMEM), in which the element comprises more than one kind of material, has been proposed to predict the effective elastic properties of 3-D braided composites. This method is based on the variational principle and our previous geometric model that assumes the existence of different types of unit cells in the three regions in a 3-D braided composite. i.e. the interior, surface and corner. The numerical procedure involved two steps. First, a fine local mesh at the unit cell level is used to analyze the stress/strain of each unit cell. Then, a relatively coarse global mesh is used to obtain the overall responses of the composite at macroscopic level. By using: the stress volume averaging method, the effective elastic properties of the composite can be calculated under the prescribed uniform strain boundary conditions. Finally, the predicted stress/strain curves are compared with experimental results, demonstrating the applicability of the FME method. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.