Elastic and inelastic local strain fields in composites with coated fibers or particles: theory and validation

This paper deals with mean field multiscale approaches for coated fiber- or particle-reinforced composites under nonlinear strain. The current work attempts to extend Dvorak’s well-known transformation field analysis for mean field approaches, in which the composite’s constitutive law is split into an elastic and an inelastic part. The classical Eshelby’s inhomogeneity problem considering eigenstrains is revisited in order to address the presence of a coating layer. For this scope, three different methodologies are employed, one for general ellipsoidal inhomogeneities, a modified composite cylinder method for long cylindrical fibers and a modified composite sphere method for spherical particles. After identifying proper interaction tensors for the inhomogeneity and its coating layer, the composite’s overall response is evaluated by extending classical mean field techniques, such as the Mori–Tanaka and the self-consistent methods. Numerical examples illustrate the differences in macroscopic and microscopic predictions between the general approach and the modified composite cylinder and sphere Assemblages.