Overall longitudinal shear elastic modulus of a 1–3 composite with anisotropic constituents

The overall properties of a binary elastic periodic fiber-reinforced composite, with transversely isotropic constituents in an anti-plane-strain deformation state, are studied here for a cell periodicity of square type. This analysis considers four different orientations of the axis of transverse isotropy of constituents with respect to the direction of fibers. Each case is characterized by very simple closed-form expressions for the effective coefficients, which were obtained using the asymptotic homogenization method. Local problems defined on a periodic square unit cell are solved using Weierstrassian and Natanzon’s functions and perturbation theory relative to small anisotropy. In the isotropic limit, comparison with rigorous bounds and some well-known mixing rules are made. Also, comparisons with finite element calculations show that the derived closed-form formulae provide excellent results even for large anisotropy.