Modeling of flexible fiber motion and prediction of material properties.

This work employs the rod chain model of Wang et al. (2006) to study the motion of discrete flexible fibers. Results are presented for both individual fibers and a stochastic distribution of fibers to study the variations in the transient effects between the rigid and the flexible fiber systems. Results demonstrate that the observed period decreases as the fiber flexure increases, and provide insight into the modifications required for the orientation distribution function of flexible suspensions. To demonstrate the importance in studying the alterations in the transient effects on a processed part, a study of the cured composite stiffness is presented for the flexible fiber system using the micro-mechanical approach of Hsiao and Daniel (1996) along with an adapted version of the rigid fiber micromechanical approach discussed by Jack and Smith (2008).