A multiphase membrane element with rotational DOFs for the elastic analysis of date palm fibre reinforced PVC composite

The main contribution of this work is the development of a new multiphase 4-node quadrilateral membrane finite element (PFR4M) for the analysis of elastic properties of polymer-based composites. Based on Plane Fibre Rotation (PFR) concept, the present element is formulated and implemented in Standard Abaqus software using two internal subroutines. The scope of application is extended to a wide range of materials which exhibit significant contrast between the mechanical properties of components. For this purpose, a date palm fibre reinforced PVC composite is prepared and characterized to provide microstructural imaging that serves as heterogeneous domain and used in numerical validation. The effects of the mesh size and the weight fractions of fibre on the performance of the multiphase element are analyzed. Statistical study is carried out to assess the size of the Representative Volume Element (RVE) of the composites. The present element is compared with two classical finite elements and the mean field model of Mori-Tanaka (MT). The obtained results show excellent convergence towards the effective property for all the considered configurations. An improved accuracy with respect to the classical 4-node element is achieved, which demonstrates the effectiveness of the present element in solving these homogenization problems.