Laminated fiber reinforced composites are increasingly being used in various load-bearing applications including for instance aerospace and wind energy power industries. Understanding the mechanical behavior of a unidirectional lamina as the basic part of a laminated composite is of great interest from a design perspective and also for the analysis of composite structures. At the micro-level, mechanical behavior of a lamina including stiffness and strength is studied based on the mechanical properties of individual constituents. This study focuses on micromechanical approaches such as strength of materials, elasticity, semi-empirical, and numerical methods for the prediction of the stiffness and strength of a unidirectional lamina. To assess the accuracy of these models, results of each model are compared against experimental results available in the literature for unidirectional composites with different fiber volume fractions. Moreover, recent studies on micromechanical modeling of unidirectional composites are reviewed.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.