Determining a representative volume element capturing the morphology of fibre reinforced polymer composites

Abstract Production parameters have been found to influence the morphology of microstructure and damage behaviour in composite materials. To model the effects of this microstructural inhomogeneity, it is necessary, for practical purposes, to consider a limited, representative microstructure. A method to find a representative volume element (RVE) is investigated in which the Kolmogorov goodness-of-fit test is applied to a spatial distribution statistic, local population density, which is defined as a ratio between the fibre diameter and the area of that fibre’s enclosing Voronoi polygon. The method is applied to actual spatial distribution data recorded for a crossply composite laminate manufactured from 3M scotchply 1003 prepreg. For the composite laminate studied, a representative volume element size is determined through applying the Kolmogorov goodness-of-fit test at significance levels 0.05 and 0.10, resulting in sizes of approximately 300 × 300 μm.