Response of Complex Microstructure Composites via an Integrated API Based on Finite-Volume Homogenization

Abstract The ongoing advances in the manufacturing of composite materials have produced a paradigm shift in the realization of materials with complex microstructures for targeted applications, including composites with variable fiber diameters. To make the analysis of complex microstructure materials accessible to the materials/mechanics community involved in the design and fabrication of new generations of materials, an Application Programming Interface (API) was constructed that produces homogenized stress-strain response of composite materials under six fundamental unidirectional loadings. The API integrates two key computational components embedded in Python environment, namely: the Finite Volume Direct Averaging Micromechanics (FVDAM) homogenization theory coded in Matlab and connected through the Matlab-engine library, as well as Gravity Driven Microstructure Generation (GDMG) algorithm that generates complex composite microstructures. FVDAM provides more efficient solutions to problems with highly heterogeneous domains than the popular finite-element technique. The API may be used by researchers with little knowledge of the underpinning mechanics to study the effects of ordered/disordered fiber placement, fiber/matrix mechanical properties and content on the overall elastic-plastic response of unidirectional composites and their microstructure-property relationship. We employ this API to generate the response of Hashin-type architectures and study the convergence of both elastic moduli and elastic-plastic response to transversely isotropic behavior under different loading directions as a function of the number of different-diameter fibers at a fixed fiber volume fraction.