Micromechanical modelling and experimental investigation of random discontinuous glass fiber polymer-matrix composites

Videomeasurements were used to estimate the damage in chopped random glass fiber polymer-matrix composites. In order to predict the overall mechanical behaviour, voiding evolution induced by fiber debonding is incorporated into a micromechanics-based constitutive model. The comparison between the experimental data and the numerical predictions shows a very good agreement. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.