Effect of different aspect ratio distributions on the thermomechanical properties of short-fiber composites

This paper focuses on the thermomechanical properties of cylindrical short-fiber-reinforced composites. Under the premise of an equal average aspect ratio, a more systematic exploration was conducted to assess the relevance of short-fiber length characteristics to the thermomechanical of the composites. A random modeling algorithm for short fibers based on Monte Carlo theory is proposed to generate more realistic models of short-fiber composites. Finite-element simulations were combined to quantify the effective thermal conductivity, coefficient of thermal expansion, and elastic modulus of the composites models, providing comprehensive thermomechanical data for statistical evaluation and comparison of the results. The comparison between the simulation results and experimental results demonstrates the reliability of the short-fiber composites model. The analysis of the resulting data indicates that the effect of different aspect ratio distributions of short fibers on the thermomechanical properties of the composites is negligible. The maximum errors for the three thermomechanical properties are 1.65%, 0.52%, and 1.4%, respectively. This method provides an effective supplement for understanding the thermomechanical properties of short-fiber composites.