Analysis of Local Thermomechanical Effects in Fiber-reinforced Periodic Composites

Two approaches are combined to investigate the effect of localized thermomechanical loadings of periodic multiphase materials. The first one, referred to as the representative cell method, reduces the infinite domain problem to a problem for the periodicity cell by means of the discrete Fourier transform. This problem is solved by the discretization of the cell into several subcells and a second order expansion of the displacements transform vector in terms of local coordinates. Results for boron/epoxy and glass/epoxy composites subjected to localized mechanical and thermal loadings are presented, and they are compared with analytical solutions for homogeneous materials.