Prediction of mechanical properties of carbon fibre composites using a polyhedron cell model

Abstract

Traditional studies on carbon fibre composite mainly focus on the enhanced granular characteristics of carbon fibre composite, but the investigations about its fibroid and tensile advantages were not enough. In this paper, a polyhedron cell model to describe the carbon fibre composite micro-structure, focusing on the 3D deformation of carbon fibre composite with variable cross-sections, was proposed to predict the mechanical properties of carbon fibre composite. Five mechanical property indices were defined to reveal the relationship between the bearing capacity and carbon fibre composite micro-structure. Finally, the simulation and experiment results show that the proposed method was useful for the optimum design of carbon fibre composite structure and provides a method for evaluating the mechanical properties of carbon fibre composite.

Keywords:

• Carbon fibre composite
• 3D deformation
• Polyhedron cell model
• Mechanical properties
• Optimum design