Elastoplastic micromechanical analysis of fibre-reinforced composites with defects

The objective of the present work is the computational micromechanical analysis of unidirectional fibre-reinforced composites, considering defects. The micromechanical model is developed using refined beam theories based on the Carrera Unified Formulation (CUF) and involves using the Component-Wise approach, resulting in a high-fidelity model. Defects are introduced in the representative volume element (RVE) in the form of matrix voids by modifying the material properties of a certain quantity of the Gauss points associated with the matrix. The quantity of Gauss points thus modified is based on the required void volume fraction, and the resulting set is prescribed a material property with negligible stiffness to model voids. Two types of void distribution are considered in the current work – randomly distributed voids within the matrix, and voids clustered in a region of the RVE. The current study investigates the influence of voids present in the matrix and their distribution throughout the RVE domain on the macroscale mechanical response. Material nonlinearity is considered for the matrix phase.