NUMERICAL APPROACHES FOR CALCULATING THE EFFECTIVE THERMO-MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF THREE- PHASE COMPOSITES

The aim of this article is to predict effective thermo-mechanical properties of three phase composites made up of coated unidirectional cylindrical fibers using homogenization techniques. The main focus is on square arrangements of cylindrical fibers in composite. The numerical approach is based on the micro-mechanical unit cell modeling technique using finite element method (FEM) with appropriate boundary conditions and it allows the extension to composites with arbitrary geometrical inclusion configurations, providing a powerful tool for fast calculation of their effective properties. The results obtained from the numerical technique are compared with those obtained by means of the analytical asymptotic homogenization method (AHM) for different fiber volume fractions. In order to analyze the interphase effect, the effective properties are compared with the results obtained from some theoretical approaches reported in the literature