52nd AIAA/ASME/ASCE/AHS/ASC Structures, Structural Dynamics and Materials Conference
4 - 7 April 2011, Denver, Colorado

AIAA 2011-1923

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

Xiang Ren and G.D. Seidel
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA, 24061-0203, USA

The fuzzy ber material system of interest herein is an engineering material that has a glass ber core, with dense carbon nanotube "forest" emanating radially from the ber surface along the length of the ber. The interest in the fuzzy ber 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 per- tains to the structural health monitoring (SHM) application envisioned for the fuzzy bers in advanced hybrid composites for hypersonic aerospace vehicles. This paper is focused on acquiring the static undamaged eective elastic and electrical properties of the fuzzy ber material using multi-layer composite cylinder models (CCM), which have been modied to take into account the radial symmetry of the nanocomposite interphase layer. These eective properties will be considered as initial conditions for the undamaged fuzzy ber, which can be used to compare with the damaged effective properties in our future work.