This paper is aimed at studying the effective mechanical property of shape memory polymer composites (SMPC) reinforced with natural short fibers. To this end, a novel modeling scheme was presented. The SMPC was firstly equivalent to the composite laminates, and the natural short fibers are also subtly equivalent to the ellipsoidal inclusions distributed in the matrix materials periodically. Moreover, a represented volume element along laminate thickness can be easily chosen, and its elastic constants are accurately acquired by employing a proper microscopic mechanical model. Herein, the high-fidelity generalized method of cells, which represents a good ability in predicting the effective mechanical behaviors of composites, was used. On this basis, the classic laminate theory was improved to suitable for describing the elastic constants and failure strength the SMPC with respect to ambient temperature. Numerical results show a good consistency to the experimental data. Moreover, a higher ambient temperature tends to sharply decrease their final failure strength. It is also revealed that the presented modeling method shows a great potential in calculating the effectively mechanical property of the natural short fiber-reinforced composites.

中文翻译：

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一种新的形状记忆聚合物复合材料在环境温度下的微观建模方案

本文旨在研究天然短纤维增强的形状记忆聚合物复合材料（SMPC）的有效力学性能。为此，提出了一种新颖的建模方案。SMPC首先等同于复合层合板，天然短纤维也巧妙地等同于周期性分布在基体材料中的椭圆形夹杂物。此外，可以很容易地选择沿层板厚度表示的体积元素，并通过采用适当的微观力学模型准确地获得其弹性常数。在此，使用了高保真广义细胞方法，该方法在预测复合材料的有效力学行为方面具有良好的能力。以这个为基础，经典的层压理论得到改进，适合描述 SMPC 相对于环境温度的弹性常数和破坏强度。数值结果表明与实验数据具有良好的一致性。此外，较高的环境温度往往会急剧降低其最终失效强度。还表明，所提出的建模方法在计算天然短纤维增强复合材料的有效力学性能方面显示出巨大的潜力。