Abstract
As composite materials became widely applied to structure members, the dispersion of strength for composite materials has become a centre of great interest. There are many factors affecting the dispersion, because composite materials are produced by the combination of various materials. For example, the distributions of modulus of elasticity, void and another defects in a composite material are some of those, but their complexity makes this field of research difficult.
In this paper, the finite element method was applied to investigate the dispersion of strength, because it is a very useful technique for numerical analysis of mechanical behaviors. Fiberglass reinforced plastic was chosen as a sample and the Weibull-distribution of modulus of elasticity was set up as the factor which influences the dispersion. The mechanical behavior was simulated by the finite element method.
The results showed that dispersions of the strength and modulus of elasticity obtained by choosing the coefficient of variation for the Weibull-distribution as parameter agreed qualitatively well with the experimental results obtained by Coleman. It was recognized that the present method is very useful for the investigation of dispersion of strength for composite materials.
