Improved estimates for the elastic properties of dilute composites with imperfect interfacial bondings of moderate anisotropy (Q6081816)

The authors prove estimates for the linearly elastic properties of dilute composites reinforced by either spherical particles or circular fibers that are imperfectly bonded to the surrounding matrix. The effective stiffness tensor of dilute composites with compliant bondings can be written as \( \widetilde{\mathbb{C}}=\mathbb{C}^{(1)}+c(\mathbb{C}_{eq}^{(2)}-\mathbb{C} ^{(1)})^{-1}+\mathbb{P}^{-1}\), where \(\mathbb{P}\) is a microstructural tensor related to Eshelby's tensor given by \(\mathbb{P}=\frac{1}{4\pi } \int_{\left\vert \xi \right\vert =1}\mathbb{H}(\xi )d\xi \), in the case of spherical particles and \(\mathbb{P}=\frac{1}{2\pi }\int_{\left\vert \xi _{\perp }\right\vert =1}\mathbb{H}(\xi _{\perp })d\xi _{\perp }\), in the case of circular fibers, with \(\mathbb{H}_{ijkl}(\xi )=K_{ik}^{-1}(\xi )\xi _{j}\xi _{l}\mid _{(ij)(kl)}\), \(K_{ik}(\xi )=\mathbb{C}_{ijkl}^{(1)}\xi _{j}\xi _{l}\), \(\xi _{\perp }\) is orthogonal to the unit vector \(\mathbf{ N}\), \(\mathbb{C}_{eq}^{(2)}\) is an equivalent stiffness tensor of the reinforcing phase given by \(\mathbb{C}_{eq}^{(2)}=(\mathbb{C}^{(2)^{-1}}+ \mathbb{R}^{(1,2)^{-1}})^{-1}\), and \(\mathbb{R}^{(1,2)}\) being an interfacial stiffness tensor given by \(\mathbb{R}^{(1,2)}=(a\times d^{-1})\left\langle \eta (n)\boxtimes (n\otimes n)\right\rangle ^{(1,2)^{-1}}\), arithmetic mean, or \(\mathbb{R} ^{(1,2)}=(a\times d)\left\langle \eta ^{-1}(n)\boxtimes (n\otimes n)\right\rangle ^{(1,2)}\), harmonic mean, where \(d=2\) for circular fibers and \(d=3\) for spherical particles, in both cases of radius \(a\). In the case of spherical particles with isotropic phases, the authors rewrite the effective stiffness tensor which is also isotropic and the shear modulus. They draw computations which end with an expression of the effective shear modulus of rigidly reinforced composites which involves a function \(R\) and which predicts the elastic neutrality of rigid inclusions under a special choice of \(R\). In the case of fiber-reinforced composites, the authors observe that the effective stiffness tensor is transversely isotropic and they give the expression of the in-plane shear modulus. They draw computations which lead to the expression of the effective in-plane shear modulus of rigidly reinforced composites which involves a function \(R^{\prime }\) and they again prove an elastic neutrality of rigid inclusions under a special choice of \(R^{\prime }\). In the last part of their paper, the authors compare the estimates they obtain with exact solutions in the two cases they consider and for different values of some parameters.