Stress Analysis of Composite Material with Finite Element Method

Yi Pan, Assimina A. Pelegri
Rutgers University, USA

Overall elastic properties of short fiber reinforced composite are of primary importance in application. The properties can be obtained experimentally or numerically. FEA can be employed to a representative volume element (RVE) to obtain the overall elastic properties based on continuum micro-mechanics. In this paper, we use the FEA Abaqus product suite to model the stress distribution within an RVE of short fiber reinforced composite. The unit-length RVE contains two short fibers that are perpendicular to each other. The figure (cut view at y=0.5) shows the phenomenon of stress concentration within the RVE due to the discontinuity of the materials.