Dispersion of rigid line inclusions as stiffeners and shear band instability triggers

A dispersion of stiff and thin (‘rigid line’) inclusions (RLIs) in a matrix material may result beneficial for stiffening in the elastic range, but might be detrimental to strength, as material instabilities may be triggered by inclusions when the matrix is brought to a viscoplastic-damaging state. This dual role of RLIs is investigated by...

Discrete fiber models beyond classical applications: Rigid line inclusions, fiber-based batteries, challenges

Reinforced composites are used in many industrial and multi-functional applications. The efficiency of the reinforcements depends mainly on the aspect ratio, material properties, and the adhesion between matrix and reinforcement. Particularly, high aspect ratio fillers and inclusions have gained popularity due to their unique material and...

Fiber neutrality in fiber-reinforced composites: Evidence from a computational study

We report numerical evidence for neutrality of thin fibers to a prescribed uniform stress field in a fiber-reinforced composite. Elastic finite element analyses of fiber-reinforced composites are carried out with a conventional fully-resolved model and a novel dimensionally-reduced fiber model.The two modeling approaches are compared in the...