The effective elastic moduli of microcracked composite materials (Q1262024)

The authors discuss the macro-scale methods to predict the effect of microdefects on the overall macroscopic material properties of solids containing various defects and inclusions. In particular, the self- consistent mechanics method is used to evaluate the effective elastic moduli of microcracked composite materials. By this method, the interactions among matrix material, inclusions and cracks are implicitly taken into account. The elastic moduli of a solid with spherical inclusions and penny shaped microcracks embedded are estimated. The microcracks and inclusions are randomly distributed in size, orientation and location. The matrix material and inclusions are taken to be isotropic, with different elastic moduli and Poisson's ratios. The microcracked composite is isotropic. In addition, the elastic moduli of a composite material with parallel penny-shaped nonrandomly distributed cracks are studied. The microcracked composite is transversely isotropic. The effects of inclusions and microcracks on overall elastic moduli are approximately decoupled for stiff inclusions. The analytical results presented may be of some value to researchers working in the area of composite materials.