Representative volume element generation and its size determination for discontinuous composites made from chopped prepregs

Abstract In the present study, the composites made from chopping prepregs in rectangular chips, called discontinuous composites derived from chopped prepreg (DCCP) were modeled for stiffness prediction. Standard mechanics approach with displacement boundary conditions is used for stiffness prediction. The minimum size of the representative volume element (RVE) for this material is determined. An algorithm based on the random sequential adsorption technique (RSA) has been exploited to generate the 3D RVEs. RVEs of five different aspect ratios of the cuboid-shaped inclusions are developed using this technique. The chips are completely randomly oriented with a constant volume fraction. A detailed study was carried out in each case by further generating the RVEs with different increasing sizes, and the smallest size of RVE with geometric periodicity was identified. Further, the characteristics of these RVEs have been investigated for different aspect ratios, varying the chip volume fraction for the influence of volume fraction on RVE size and the material properties. The efficacy of the developed approach is demonstrated through repetitiveness of the effective properties prediction for various scenarios studied. The resulting material showed isotropy in the plane where chips are distributed randomly while overall isotropy about 80% is seen in most of the RVEs studied.