Analytic and computational multi-scale micromechanics models for mechanical and electrical properties of fuzzy fiber composites

摘要

The fuzzy fiber material system of interest herein is an engineering material that has a glass fiber core, with dense carbon nanotube "forest" emanating radially from the fiber surface along the length of the fiber. The interest in the fuzzy fiber material stems from its multifunctional nanocomposite interphase region which can provide enhanced load transfer and damage resistance in addition to providing electromechanical coupling in the form of piezoresistivity. The later functionality of the interphase is of particular interest as it pertains to the structural health monitoring (SHM) application envisioned for the fuzzy fibers in advanced hybrid composites for hypersonic aerospace vehicles. This paper is focused on acquiring the static undamaged effective elastic and electrical properties of the fuzzy fiber material using multi-layer composite cylinder models (CCM), which have been modified to take into account the radial symmetry of the nanocomposite interphase layer. These effective properties will be considered as initial conditions for the undamaged fuzzy fiber, which can be used to compare with the damaged effective properties in our future work.