AN ALTERNATE UNIFIED APPROACH TO THE MICROMECHANICAL ANALYSIS OF COMPOSITE-MATERIALS

An alternate approach to Aboudi's Method of Cells [1], for a unified t reatment of the micromechanical analysis of composite materials is pre sented. This approach retains the philosophy of Aboudi's Method of Cel ls but is indeed a finite element (FE) based approach. The equations o f equilibrium are applied to a representative volume model (RVM) and a unified method of homogenization (UMH) of micromechanical effects is presented. The method as developed here can be applied to find the hom ogenized properties of any representative volume model that meets the requirements discussed. In this paper. we first apply it to the analys is of grinding wheels, a ''three'' constituent isotropic material, whe rein the void is treated as a material having volume property only. Th e equations, which are derived for an orthotropic material, are then s pecialized to fiber reinforced composites and the results are compared to Aboudi's and others. Several interesting points arise regarding th e FE ''load vector'' for specialists that typically work in developing FE methods and codes.