Abstract
Attempt was made to study the effect of orientation distribution of disk-shaped fillers on the effective elastic moduli of disk-reinforced composites. The analysis is based upon the Eshelby's equivalent inclusion method and the smearing-out approximation of Takahashi et al., which can be applied to the estimation of the effect of orientation distribution of ellipsoidal fillers together with the interaction among the fillers. In this paper, the expressions of the analytical procedure are refined and simplified, and numerical results are presented for the composites containing disk-shaped particles. Analytical results are in good agreement with experimental data on mica/PP composites. It is shown that disks are more effective for Young's modulus than fibers, in both two-dimensional and three-dimensional reinforcement.
