A micro‐macromechanical approach for analyzing creep in randomly oriented short fiber composites

Abstract The main purpose of this research is to develop a model investigating creep phenomenon in polymeric composites reinforced with randomly oriented short fibers. The creep phenomenon is first analyzed in a representative volume element of a long‐fiber composites at the scale of micro through an implicit approach. Then, creep analysis is performed at laminate level as the macro‐scale analysis. Then, creep response of a quasi‐isotropic laminate is obtained where the outputs of the micro‐scale analysis are fed as input data to the macro‐scale modeling. Laminate analogy is properly integrated with creep modeling technique to obtain the creep behavior of randomly oriented short fiber composites. The results of modeling are compared with published experimental data revealing the proper performance of the developed modeling for both short‐term and long‐term creep phenomena.