Fiber interactions and effective elasto-plastic properties of short-fiber composites

The fiber¯fiber or fiber¯matrix interactions and effective elasto-plastic properties of aligned short-fiber-reinforced metal matrix composite are studied by using a micromechanical model and the finite element method. The fiber is assumed to be elastic and the matrix to be elasto-viscoplastic continuum. The local elasto-plastic stress fields of a unit cell in composite are examined in order to understand the mechanism of inelastic deformations and interactions between fibers or between fiber and matrix. Effective elasto-plastic properties of B/Al composites are predicted by the domain average method. It is shown that present predictions are in agreement with the experimental data for the B/Al system.