Abstract:
Ultra-thin woven fibre composites are becoming
popular in weight sensitive applications and hence it is
important to predict their mechanical properties for design
improvements. This paper presents a simple homogenized
micro-mechanical modelling technique with solid elements for
predicting mechanical properties of the thin woven fibre
composites. A representative unit cell has been generated using
a finite element pre-processor, TexGen and an elliptical crosssectioned
yarn is then idealized to behave according to
Kirchhoff – Love plate theory. Bezier spline is chosen as a
suitable interpolation function for the composite, and further
analysis is performed with two distinct unit cell representations.
It is shown that a simple 3D solid model with idealized elliptical
cross section predicts both in-plane and bending properties with
good accuracy in the linear regime. The proposed 3D models are
capable of predicting the response in the nonlinear regime and
has overcome the anomalies faced with 1D model with respect
to shear and Poisson’s ratio.
