Investigations on micro-mechanical and thermal characteristics of glass fiber reinforced epoxy based binary composite structure using finite element method

Binary composite materials comprising of randomly oriented E-glass fiber of four different weight percentages impregnated with epoxy resin are fabricated to study their physical, mechanical and thermal properties. The experimental results are used for the validation of the results obtained by simulation using ANSYS software. The finite element (FE) model based on representative area element (RAE) approach is implemented in the finite element code ANSYS. The comparative analysis gives an acceptable error, indicating applicability of such simulation model studies in predicting material characteristics in advance. The elastic modulus evaluated both by Halpin–Tsai model and FE model are more close to experimental results as compared to the results obtained from rule-of-mixture. Similarly, the tensile strength of the composites evaluated both experimentally and by finite element method (FEM) shows close resemblance. An empirical relationship has been developed and reported for the calculation of effective thermal conductivity for two-phase composite system (i.e. fiber and matrix interface). It is observed that the order of composites with effective thermal conductivity is 45 wt.% glass fiber based composite >35 wt.% glass fiber based composite >25 wt.% glass fiber based composite >15 wt.% glass fiber based composite. The magnitude increases slightly in case of 45 wt.% glass fiber based composite, whereas it remains almost constant in case of 35 wt.% and shows slightly decrease in case of 25 wt.% and 15 wt.% glass fiber based composites. This facilitates designing/tailoring of composite materials as per structural requirements in the preliminary stages of R&D more economically.

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► Binary composites are fabricated to study their physical, mechanical and thermal properties.
► Theoretical Elastic modulus (Halpin–Tsai and FE model) are validated with experimental results.
► An empirical thermal conductivity model has proposed for two-phase composites.
► The order of thermal conductivity is 45 wt.% > 35 wt.% > 25 wt.% > 15 wt.% composite respectively.