Micromechanical modeling of plain woven polymer composites via 3D finite‐volume homogenization

In this article, an anisotropic version of 3D finite‐volume direct averaging micromechanics (FVDAM) has been developed, enabling efficient and accurate analysis of composites with woven reinforcements. The formulation is based on a local/global stiffness matrix procedure, with the equilibrium equations in conjunction with continuity of displacements and tractions imposed in an average sense. The present 3D FVDAM admits arbitrary anisotropic constituent materials, whereas the 2D FVDAM permits orthotropic subvolume materials at most. On this basis, an FVDAM‐based two‐step approach, which is expected to provide more accurate predictions than the traditional one‐step homogenization, is employed to homogenize the repeating unit cell of a plain weave. The performance of the proposed method is assessed by comparison with other analytical, numerical, and experimental data found in literature. The generated results demonstrate that the FVDAM is capable of modeling plain woven polymer composites reasonably, making FVDAM an attractive alternative to other numerical and analytical techniques for analysis of composites with periodic internal microstructures. POLYM. COMPOS., 39:3022–3032, 2018. © 2017 Society of Plastics Engineers