Effective medium calculation of creep of fiber reinforced composites

The effective creep rate of fiber reinforced composites in an effective med ium approximation is calculated analytically. The fibers are modeled by ell ipsoids of a given aspect ratio. Both the case of aligned and randomly orie nted ellipsoids are investigated. The elastic strains are calculated along the previous work of [J. D. Eshelby, Proc. R. Soc. London, Ser. A 241, 376 (1957)]. I find that different amounts of the reinforcement is to change th e time scale of change. The functional form remains unchanged. (C) 2001 Ame rican Institute of Physics.