Effective mechanical properties of injection-molded short fiber reinforced PEEK composites using periodic homogenization

Injection-molded short fiber composites are strongly anisotropic through the thickness of parts, and an accurate prediction of the effective mechanical properties remains an incredibly challenging task. This paper deals with a methodology for the calculation of elasto-plastic behaviors of short fiber reinforced composites. The micro-computed tomography (mu CT) is utilized at first to obtain the fiber orientation distribution in a material sample, and then the five-layer structure is displayed and analyzed. Secondly, the numerical modeling of representative volume elements (RVEs) with specified fiber orientations is proposed based on the laminate structure. Furthermore, finite element homogenization with the periodic boundary condition is employed to analyze the relations of the elasto-plastic behaviors of RVE with five layers: the skin layers, shell zones, and core region. Based on the experimental results, the proposed multi-scale modeling method was found to accurately predict the effective elasto-plastic behaviors of the injection-molded short fiber composites.

Automated summary

This paper presents a methodology for calculating the elasto-plastic behaviors of injection-molded short fiber composites. The fiber orientation distribution is obtained using micro-computed tomography, and numerical modeling and finite element homogenization are employed to analyze the mechanical properties. Experimental results show that the proposed method accurately predicts the effective mechanical behaviors of the composites.