Micromechanics of fibrous composites subjected to combined shear and thermal loading using a truly meshless method

In this study, a micromechanical model is presented to study the combined normal, shear and thermal loading of unidirectional (UD) fiber reinforced composites. An appropriate truly meshless method based on the integral form of equilibrium equations is also developed. This meshless method formulated for the generalized plane strain assumption and employed for solution of the governing partial differential equations of the problem. The solution domain includes a representative volume element (RVE) consists of a fiber surrounded by corresponding matrix in a square array arrangement. A direct interpolation method is employed to enforce the appropriate periodic boundary conditions for the combined thermal, transverse shear and normal loading. The fully bonded fiber–matrix interface condition is considered and the displacement continuity and traction reciprocity are imposed to the fiber–matrix interface. Predictions show excellent agreement with the available experimental, analytical and finite element studies. Comparison of the CPU time between presented method and the conventional meshless local Petrov–Galerkin (MLPG) shows significant reduction of the computational time. The results of this study also revealed that the presented model could provide highly accurate predictions with relatively small number of nodes and less computational time without the complexity of mesh generation.