Elastic constants of fibrous polymer composite materials reinforced with transversely isotropic fibers

In this paper, a model to find the approximate equations for determining the elastic constants of unidirectional fiber – reinforced composite materials in terms of the constituent material properties is described. The novelty of this work is that the fibers are considered to be transversely isotropic. To simulate the microstructure of the composite, we will take into account the concept of interphase with the concurrent assumption that the fibers are parallel to the line formed by the centers of the bases of a three – phase cylinder model, having a uniform distribution inside the matrix without agglomeration. The results were compared with the respective values of some reliable theoretical models as well as with experimental data obtained from other researchers, and they were found to be in reasonable agreement.