Finite Element Modeling of Residual Thermal Stresses in Fiber-Reinforced Composites Using Different Representative Volume Elements

In this paper, finite element analysis of residual thermal stresses in fiber-reinforced composites has been carried out. For a more realistic simulation of the microstructure of these materials subjected to different loadings, a representative volume element (RVE) may be used. In this paper, three different types of RVE configurations, circular, square and hexagonal are modeled and the effects of each type of fiber packing are studied. A mono fiber circular unit cell is considered using Finite Element (FE) method. Extending the mono fiber model, FE models with different arrays of fibers have been created to investigate the effects of neighboring fibers on the results. The results obtained are used to introduce new boundary conditions for the mono fiber model to make it able to predict the macro behavior in an efficient way. In all steps, the results are also compared with theoretical results presented in the literature. The boundary conditions presented in this research are proved to model the overall behavior efficiently.