Coating shape effect on effective conductivities of aligned long elliptic cylinder reinforced composites

The effect of coating shape on effective conductivities of aligned long ell iptic cylinder reinforced composites is investigated for two types of coati ngs. uniform and confocal. The aligned elliptic cylinders are either random ly distributed or periodically arranged in space. It is found that uniform coating, under most circumstances, is more effective in enhancing or impair ing the inclusion, while confocal coating performs better for enhancing par allel and impairing perpendicular components at thin coatings, and for impa iring parallel and enhancing perpendicular components at thick coatings. Th e advantage of uniform coating over confocal coating becomes more pronounce d with increasing inclusion aspect ratio. The regularity of array structure resticts the allowable coating ratio and gives rise to interesting behavio r of the coating effect.