Analysis of Consolidation of Matrix-Coated Fibre Composite by Power Law Creep

The paper is concerned with the establishment of constitutive modelling approach for analysis of the consolidation processing of matrix-coated fibre composites. The constitutive modeling approach makes use of a repeating unit cell technique and is based on a variational method employing Hill’s minimum principle for velocities. In addition, the existing porous material model is adopted for generalisation of the resulting constitutive equations to make it applicable to practical consolidation process in which the stress states are mutiaxial. The model requires only the creep properties of matrix material. It has been verified by comparing predicted results with those obtained from independently developed micromechanical models. The resulting constitutive model has been used to simulate the uniaxial consolidation experiment. Good comparison has been achieved.