Fiber-reinforced composites: nonlinear elasticity and beyond

A fiber-reinforced material comprised of a soft polymeric matrix reinforced with polymeric filaments is often modeled as an equivalent anisotropic nonlinearly elastic solid. Although the response of a single constituent polymeric material can be modeled by nonlinear thermo-elasticity over a large range of deformations and temperatures, there can be conditions requiring a theory that extends the range of application to account for other features, such as nonlinear viscoelasticity and an evolving microstructure due to a combination of mechanical and nonmechanical factors. In a multi-constituent fiber-reinforced material these effects can be expected to occur with different initial triggering and ongoing potency in the separate polymer matrix and fiber constituents. This paper summarizes a number of constitutive models for fiber-reinforced materials that include these features, discusses the connection of these models to a nonlinearly elastic scaffold, provides a framework for the incorporation of these features into the constitutive theory for an equivalent general simple solid, and shows how certain terms in the mathematical structure can be associated with the matrix constituent while other terms can associated with the fibrous constituent.