A SELF-CONSISTENT FABRIC GEOMETRY MODEL - MODIFICATION AND APPLICATION OF A FABRIC GEOMETRY MODEL TO PREDICT THE ELASTIC PROPERTIES OF TEXTILE COMPOSITES

A method for predicting the elastic properties of textile-reinforced c omposites is presented with applications. The method is a modification of a Fabric Geometry Model (FGM) [1-3] that relates fiber architectur e and material properties of textile-reinforced composites to its glob al stiffness matrix through micromechanics and stiffness averaging tec hnique. The FGM, although proven to be a quick and successful method [ 4], suffers two major drawbacks: 1. incompatibility of the basic trans verse isotropy assumption with the theoretical mathematical derivation , (i.e., the mathematical derivation produces elastic constants that d o not exhibit transverse isotropy) and 2. inconsistency of the transfo rmation matrices associated with the stiffness calculations (i.e., the technique is not sufficiently robust to handle all cases). In this pa per, these problems are discussed and solutions are presented. Compari son between stiffness and compliance averaging approaches is investiga ted. Moreover, predictions using the Self-Consistent FGM are compared with experimental data available in literature.