Study of the Effectiveness of the RVEs for Random Short Fiber Reinforced Elastomer Composites

Abstract

The effectiveness of the representative volume elements (RVEs) established by a modified random sequential adsorption method for random short fiber reinforced elastomer composites (SFECs) was studied. The RVE is considered to be effective when the RVE’s fiber orientation is isotropic. And the effectiveness of the RVEs was verified by evaluating the mechanical properties in different loading directions based on the finite element method. The results show that the fiber number N=4000 can be regarded as a steady threshold for the isotropy of the fiber orientation in RVEs with various fiber aspect ratios and dilute volume fraction.