Commercial fillers are often used in epoxy thermosets as they typically increase stiffness and hardness at the expense of reduced ductility. Traditional composite based micro-mechanics can be used to predict linear elastic properties for thermoset matrix system accounting for the effects  of filler type, concentration and size.  The focus of this paper is to understand the effect of rigid fillers on the constitutive properties of a fully cured epoxy thermoset polymer covering non-linear regime including failure. A methodology, using a combination of DIGIMAT and ABAQUS based FE-modeling was developed to fully capture the stress-strain behavior using a Leonov -based material model. A cohesive-zone (CZM) based failure model was utilized to predict the performance of the filled-polymer systems. Results indicate that these models are able to fairly capture the behavior of filled resin system and provide a good tool for product development.

Modeling the effect of rigid fillers reinforcement for composite applications

242nd National Meeting (2011)

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