High-Order Mixture Homogenization of Fiber-Reinforced Composites

An asymptotic mixture theory of fiber-reinforced composites with periodic microstructure is presented for rate-independent inelastic responses, such as elastoplastic deformation. Key elements are the modeling capability of simulating critical interaction across material interfaces and the inclusion of the kinetic energy of micro-displacements. The construction of the proposed mixture model, which is deterministic, instead of phenomenological, is accomplished by resorting to a variational approach. The principle of virtual work is used for total quantities to derive mixture equations of motion and boundary conditions, while Reissner’s mixed variational principle (1984, 1986), applied to the incremental boundary value problem yields consistent mixture constitutive relations. In order to assess the model accuracy, numerical experiments were conducted for static and dynamic loads. The prediction of the model in the time domain was obtained by an explicit finite element code. DYNA2D is used to furnish numerically exact data for the problems by discretizing the details of the microstructure. On the other hand, the model capability of predicting effective tangent moduli was tested by comparing results with NIKE2D. In all cases, good agreement was observed between the predicted and exact data for plastic, as well as elastic responses.