Effective properties of elastic composite materials with multi-coated reinforcements: A new micromechanical modelling and applications

In this work, a homogenisation method for the prediction of the effective properties of composite materials with multi-coated reinforcements is presented. Based on Green’s function techniques as well as interior and exterior-point Eshelby tensors for an ellipsoidal inclusion embedded in an infinite medium, a new micromechanical approach applied to the multi-coated inclusion problem is developed. The case of multi-coated spherical inclusion and isotropic materials is presented in order to provide analytical expressions of the local strains and stresses through concentration equations. Using Generalized Self-Consistent Scheme, the effective elastic properties of homothetic particle-reinforced materials are obtained. The model is applied to three-phase materials and results are compared to exact analytical solutions. The results are also presented regarding the influence of the interphase on the effective moduli and compared with those of other models including numerical investigations.