Mechanical Properties of Short-fibre Layered Composites

Recent research work has explored the use of glass fibre reinforcements for improvement of the mechanical properties of polymer-based parts produced by Layered Manufacturing (LM) techniques. In this paper, a model based on the modified rule-of-mixtures is employed for the mechanical-property prediction of short-fibre-reinforced photo-sensitive polymers produced by the layered manufacturing process developed by the authors. The predictions employ the empirical data collected on the fibre-matrix interface, the fibre geometrical arrangement within the specimens, and the fibre length. The fibre geometrical arrangement is characterized by the fibre-orientation distribution, while the fibre length is characterized by the fibre-length distribution. The effect of fibre orientation and length is accounted for in the model by the fibre-length correction and orientation-efficiency factors. Comparison of actual observations and predictions of mechanical properties of layered composites demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed methodology