Analytical and Numerical Validation of Epoxy/Glass Structural Composites for Elastic Models

Abstract

In the present study, elastic properties like Young's modulus (E1 and E2) and Poisson's ratio (v12 and v21) are evaluated for n different volume fractions along the material principal directions using finite element method (FEM). The standard commercial software ANSYS is adopted as a solver. These computational results are compared with the results obtained from analytical methods such as Rule of mixture, Halpin-Tsai, Nielsen and Chamis elastic models. The main objective of this paper is to compare the computational results with analytical methods to determine the best elastic properties. The study indicates that the Epoxy/Glass composite is more effective when the load is applied along the fiber direction. The FEM predicted results are in good comparison with results of analytical methods. weight ratio and fiber orientation (3, 5-7). Designers can test for different mixing concentrations of matrix and fiber in composite lamina (varying from 0%-100% in the steps of 10%). The end results are also varied for different thickness, strength and stiffness throughout the material component. Variables such as isotropic and orthotropic materials, linear and non-linear material properties are also the essential factors. There are several methods to evaluate the mechanical properties of composite materials such as experimental, analytical and computational methods. Computational modeling and analysis method is developed drastically in these few years. Finite element method (FEM) is the one of the numerical method which is more powerful in its application in real world problems (8) and can be used to calculate elastic properties. Now, there is much commercial software available that uses finite element analysis (FEA) technique. The commercial software ANSYS is user friendly and easy to design the required model. In this paper, elastic properties of glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) composite (epoxy/glass) are evaluated by creating 2D ANSYS model. Elastic properties of matrix and fiber materials for the calculations are taken from literature and are presented in Table 1 (9).