Development of a numerical mesoscale material model for short fibre-reinforced ceramics matrix composites

The article describes the development of a numerical material model of ceramic matrix composite (CMC) reinforced by bundles of thousands of short carbon fibres and produced by means of a liquid silicon infiltration process. The objective of the article is the development of a numerical mesoscale model that considers the material as a simple bi-phasic composite constituted by an isotropic matrix with differently sized inclusions. The distinctive material microstructure that complicates the development of such a model is presented and the issues represented by the generation of the finite element models and by the identification of the effective properties of the constituent phases are discussed. In the presented approach, models are generated by numerically simulating the packing of bundles and phases are identified by means of tests and numerical analyses, which are performed on long fibre-reinforced specimens and on specimens subjected to a thermal process for the elimination of carbon reinforcement. The approach is applied to find out the parameters of a homogenized orthotropic model for CMC plates. The obtained results show that the numerical packing simulations can generate models with a realistic distribution of size, shape and orientation of the bundles. The mesoscale model and the phase properties identified by the proposed numerical and experimental procedure are validated by considering the stiffness of standard CMC specimens obtained in three-point bending tests. According to the results, the developed methodologies can be considered as a promising approach for a reliable prediction of short fibre-reinforced CMC elastic properties.