A Novel Microscopic Modeling Scheme for the Shape Memory Polymer Composites with respect to the Ambient Temperature

Abstract

This paper is aimed at studying the effective mechanical property of shape memory polymer composites (SMPC) reinforced with natural short fibers. To this end, a novel modeling scheme was presented. The SMPC was firstly equivalent to the composite laminates, and the natural short fibers are also subtly equivalent to the ellipsoidal inclusions distributed in the matrix materials periodically. Moreover, a represented volume element along laminate thickness can be easily chosen, and its elastic constants are accurately acquired by employing a proper microscopic mechanical model. Herein, the high-fidelity generalized method of cells, which represents a good ability in predicting the effective mechanical behaviors of composites, was used. On this basis, the classic laminate theory was improved to suitable for describing the elastic constants and failure strength the SMPC with respect to ambient temperature. Numerical results show a good consistency to the experimental data. Moreover, a higher ambient temperature tends to sharply decrease their final failure strength. It is also revealed that the presented modeling method shows a great potential in calculating the effectively mechanical property of the natural short fiber-reinforced composites.