The effects of surface elasticity and surface tension on the transverse overall elastic behavior of unidirectional nano-composites

The effects of surface elasticity and surface tension on the transverse overall behavior of unidirectional nano-scale fiber-reinforced composites are studied. The interfaces between the nano-fibers and the matrix are regarded as material surfaces described by the Gurtin and Murdoch model. The analysis is based on the equivalent inhomogeneity technique. In this technique, the effective elastic properties of the material are deduced from the analysis of a small cluster of fibers embedded into an infinite plane. All interactions between the inhomogeneities in the cluster are precisely accounted for. The results related to the effects of surface elasticity are compared with those provided by the modified generalized self-consistent method, which only indirectly accounts for the interactions between the inhomogeneities. New results related to the effects of surface tension are presented. Although the approach employed is applicable to all transversely isotropic composites, in this paper we consider only a hexagonal arrangement of circular cylindrical fibers.