Weighted mori-Tanaka approach for homogenization of particulate composites at high filler fractions

A thorough understanding of material properties allowed to tailor structures closer to their design specifications which then facilitated efficient lightweight products from transportation industry to the field of biomedical engineering. Our potential then to further optimize designs is contingent on our ability to more accurately predict effective properties of composites and is significantly important in products made of functionally graded composite materials that exhibit a gradual change in material properties along multiple directions. This research work proposes a new a simplified approach to determine effective properties of composites at high filler fractions using weight functions in conjunction with the Mori-Tanaka model. It is postulated that locally in any given particulate mixture of two materials, the composition based on local microstructure may either be defined as a filler of 1st material in a matrix of 2nd material or a filler of 2nd material in a matrix of 1st material i.e., reversing the role of constituents. The overall effective property is then obtained as a weighted sum of the two cases. Material properties predicted by the new approach lie strictly within the rigorous Hashin-Shtrikman-Walpole bounds. Predicted values for effective properties using the weighted Mori-Tanaka method yields good agreement with published experimental data, mainly at high filler volume fractions.