Transverse elasticity of a unidirectionally reinforced composite with an irregular fibre arrangement: Experiments, theory and computations

This paper examines the effective elasticity properties of a unidirectionally reinforced carbon fibre–polyester composite. A computational simulation of an experimentally determined fibre arrangement is used to derive the effective elasticity properties of the transversely isotropic composite. The computational estimates for the elastic constants are compared with several theoretical estimates for the effective elasticity properties that are based on regular arrangement of the reinforcing fibres, their volume fraction and the elasticity properties of the constituents.