A homogenisation scheme and its application to evaluation of elastic properties of three-dimensional braided composites

A homogenisation scheme is developed to evaluate the elastic properties of three-dimensional (3-D) composite materials. The requirement of continuity at internal interfaces is satisfied in the scheme. The effective stress–strain relation is first derived for a particular stratified composite with straight internal interfaces. Then, a more general case with curved interfaces is discussed. Two special cases, namely, unidirectional fibre reinforced composites and particulate reinforced composites are evaluated using the scheme. It is shown that the predictions are in good agreement with experimental data. Furthermore, this homogenisation scheme is applied to 3-D braided composites to predict the elastic properties. It is again shown that the predictions are in good agreement with experimental results.