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

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Abstract

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 (μCT) 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.

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The numerical implementation of finite element homogenization with the periodic boundary condition was successfully conducted to study the effective mechanical properties of short fiber reinforced composites.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Textile and Material Engineering, Dalian Polytechnic University, Dalian, 116034, People’s Republic of China

    Jian Zhao, Chengjie Guo, Xiubin Zuo & Weidong Chen

  2. State Key Laboratory of Structural Analysis of Industrial Equipment, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, Liaoning, 116023, People’s Republic of China

    Jian Zhao, Yinghao Nie, Dong-Xiao Su & Gengdong Cheng

  3. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, 53706, USA

    Allen Jonathan Román, Lih-Sheng Turng & Tim A. Osswald

  4. Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, 53715, USA

    Lih-Sheng Turng

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  1. Jian Zhao
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Correspondence to Jian Zhao, Lih-Sheng Turng or Gengdong Cheng.

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Zhao, J., Guo, C., Zuo, X. et al. Effective mechanical properties of injection-molded short fiber reinforced PEEK composites using periodic homogenization. Adv Compos Hybrid Mater 5, 2964–2976 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42114-022-00518-y

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