Micro-mechanical analysis of the in situ effect in polymer composite laminates

A micro-mechanical finite element model of a composite sublaminate is proposed to study the mechanical response of ultra-thin plies, consisting of a representative volume element of a 90° thin lamina in-between two homogenised ±θ° plies. Random fibre distributions, materially and statistically equivalent to real distributions, are analysed. A three-dimensional computational micro-mechanics framework, with a special focus on the elastic–plastic...