Hygro-elastic Internal Stresses in Porous Composite Materials: A Multi-scale Analysis

A multi-scale approach is devoted to the analysis of hygro-elastic internal stresses in porous composite materials. Voids in composite materials are known to cause a significant reduction of mechanical properties. Moreover, in a humid environment they also affect the moisture absorption and the induced internal stresses. In this work, a self-consistent approach is used to estimate internal stresses induced by moisture absorption in composite materials with porous matrices. This work shows that the interaction between voids and moisture has a severe impact on the transient hygro-elastic stresses at both microscopic (fiber and matrix) and macroscopic (ply) scales.