Elastic property estimates of a unidirectional discontinuous fibre composite

A simple modification of the Ward/Wilczynski series-parallel and parallel-s eries models is used to examine the elastic properties of a unidirectional discontinuous-fibre composite. Whilst not a rigorous bounding procedure, th is method allows a rapid evaluation of all the elastic properties and has p roved very useful for examining the effects of fibre aspect ratio, interfib re spacing and fibre end-to-end distance on the composite elastic propertie s. In addition the method can deal with both an anisotropic fibre and an an isotropic matrix. Simple finite-element techniques are used to evaluate the se model composites and hence investigate the most appropriate connectivity regimes. The simulations show that only the longitudinal modulus of the co mposite is significantly modified by the variations in fibre aspect ratio a nd geometry. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.