PAMM Proc. Appl. Math. Mech. 9, 413 414 (2009) / DOI 10.1002/pamm.

200910180

Micromechanical material models for polymer composites through

advanced numerical simulation techniques
G. Al Kassem*,1, D. Weichert**,2
1
Borealis Polyolefin GmbH (R&D Headquarters). Sankt Peter Strasse 25, 4020 Linz, Austria
2
Institut fr Allgemeine Mechanik der RWTH Aachen. Templergraben 64, D-52062 Aachen, Germany

The paper deals with the determination of macroscopic material properties of polymer composites by meso-mechanical
numerical modeling. Focus is laid on the methodology how to build up appropriate representative volume elements (RVE) to
describe the microstructure of spherical-particles and fibers reinforced composites and how to apply appropriate 3D
boundary conditions. The work includes the comparison of the effective material parameters calculated through numerical
homogenization of our FE-models with existing analytical formulations as well as with experimental data.

2009 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

1 Introduction
The macroscopic properties are determined by a homogenization process which yields the effective stresses and strains
acting on the effective, homogenized sample of material. This sample of material is often called statistically representative
volume element (RVE). Recently it is commonly accepted that numerical simulations of the microstructural behavior in 3D
are necessary to get more accurate a priori results for the effective properties of the material [1]. These numerical simulations
can significantly reduce the number of time consuming and expensive experiments with laboriously manufactured material
samples. This clearly improves the development and design of new materials for modern engineering applications. In this
work we will compare the two well-known analytical models, Mori-Tanaka (MT) [2] and the interpolative double inclusion
(DI) [3] models with the FE model (RVE).

2 Numerical homogenisation for isotropic composite material behaviour

In general, even if the material models on the micro-level are isotropic, the effective material can show anisotropic behavior.
A general anisotropic linear elastic material may have twenty one independent material parameters. With one type of test,
meaning one set of boundary conditions it is possible to calculate at most six of those parameters, since one obtains only six
independent effective stress or strain components for the six independent strain or stress components prescribed on the
boundary of the RVE [4]. In case of isotropy the number of parameters reduces to two, so one type of test with a clever
choice of boundary conditions will be enough to obtain both material parameters. Then the effective material parameters can
easily be computed in terms of average stress and strain tensors [4] as follows,

tr
1 3 1 d : d 9 K eff eff 3K eff 2 eff
K eff =
0
, eff =
0 0
, E
eff
= , eff
= (1)
3 tr 2 d : d 3K eff + eff 6 K eff + 2 eff
0 0
3 0

tr tr
where d = 1 and d = 1 are the deviatoric parts of the stress and strain tensor respectively. The elastic
3 3
modulus and Poisson ratio are calculated according to the classical relations of isotropy.

3 RVEs for spherical particle reinforced composites

Using the finite element analysis of a periodic/non-periodic cubic RVE with randomly distributed spherical particles, we
calculate the homogenized effective elastic constants of the composite. The representative volume element used is taken as a
cube with an edge length Ledge = 1 u.l . (unit length) and a volume VRVE = Ledge 3 = 1 u.v. (unit volume). This standardization is
required because of the wish to implement an automated process starting from the generation of the RVE up to the
calculation of the effective material properties. Several types of RVE for cylindrical and spherical inclusions are studied with
____________________
*
Corresponding author: e-mail alkassem@iam.rwth-aachen.de, Phone: +43 70 6981 5287, Fax: +43 70 6981 5242
**
e-mail weichert@iam.rwth-aachen.de, Phone: +49 241 8094600, Fax: +49 241 8092231

2009 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

414 Short Communications 8: Multiscales and Homogenization

two different boundary conditions, periodic and homogeneous. In this short communication we will present the results of
RVEs with edge-trimmed spherical inclusions and periodic geometry with periodic boundary conditions.

4 Results
4.1 Different inclusions volume fraction
Fig. 1 shows the comparison results of the RVEs with periodic geometry and periodic boundary conditions with Mori-
Tanaka and Lielens analytical models. The data represent 3 different RVEs generated at each volume fraction with 3
different perturbations for each microstructure. The legend FE-average is the total average value of the homogenization
results of 9 simulations at each data point. The statistical scatter is minimal (maximum of 3%).

0.350 5750
Edge-trimmed RVE1 Edge-trimmed
0.345 same-size inclusions same-size inclusions
Periodic geometry 5250 RVE2 Periodic geometry
0.340 Periodic BC RVE3 Periodic BC
50 upto 54 Inclusions

E- Modulus [MPa]
50 upto 54 Inclusions
Poisson Ratio [-]

0.335 Seedsize = 0.05 4750 FE-average Seedsize = 0.05

RVE1 Lielens
0.330
RVE2 4250 Mori-Tanaka
0.325 RVE3 Poly. (FE-average)
Inclusion = spheres Inclusion = spheres
0.320 FE-average 3750 Em = 2800 MPa
Em = 2800 MPa
Lielens m = 0,35 m = 0,35
0.315 Ef = 72000 MPa
Mori-Tanaka Ef = 72000 MPa 3250
0.310 f = 0,2 f = 0,2
Poly. (FE-average)
0.305 2750
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
Inclusion's Volume Fraction [%] Inclusion's Volume Fraction [%]

Fig. 1 Comparison of the effective Youngs modulus and Poisson ratio between RVE, MT and DI models with respect to
the inclusions volume fraction

4.1 RVE, MT, DI models and experimental data

Fig 2 shows a comparison of experimental data with RVE having homogeneous and peridoc boundary conditions (HBC,
PBC), Mori-Tanaka (MT) and the interpolative double inclusion (DI) analytical models.

4500 0.3660
Exp. Exp. MT
4400 FE-HBC 0.3640 FE-HBC
Exp. FE - PBC FE - PBC DI 0.3641
4300 4323 DI 0.3620 DI 0.3626
FE - HBC MT MT FE - PBC
4200 FE - PBC DI 0.3600
4200 FE - HBC 0.3600
E- Modulus [MPa]

Poisson Ratio [-]

4100 4154 4142 0.3580 0.3586

MT Exp.
4000 4038 0.3560 0.3570

3900 0.3540
3800 0.3520
3700 0.3500
3600 0.3480
3500 0.3460
1 1

Fig. 2 Comparison of the effective Youngs modulus and Poisson ratio experiments, analytical models (Mori-Tanaka and
Interpolative Double Inclusion) and the finite element model (RVE).

5 Conclusion
Results show that at higher volume fractions (up to 30% in this case), the interpolative double inclusion model yields the
best results when compared to the finite element model and experimental data. Regarding the finite element model (RVE),
the stiffer result using the homogeneous boundary conditions (HBC) shown in Fig. 2 is due to the higher constraint it
provides to the micrustucture when compared to the periodic boundary conditions (PBC).

References
[1] J. Aboudi, Mechanics of Composite Materials - A Unified Micromechanical Approach (Elsevier, Amsterdam, 1991).
[2] T. Mori, K. Tanaka, Average stress in matrix and average elastic energy of materials with misfitting inclusions, Acta Metallurgica
vol. 21, p. 571-574 (1973).
[3] G. Lielens, Micro-Macro Modeling of Structured Materials, Phd thesis, Universite Catholique de Louvain, Belgium (1999).
[4] S. Loehnert, Computational Homogenization of Microheterogeneous Materials at Finite Strains Including Damage, PhD thesis,
Universitt Hannover, Germany (2004).

2009 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim www.gamm-proceedings.com