Microbuckling of composites prediction by enhancing the high-fidelity generalized method of cells micromechanics

A comprehensive method is proposed for the prediction of the response and microbuckling of various types of linearly elastic composite materials that are subjected to compressive loading. The method is based on a perturbation expansion of nonlinear equations which results into linear zero, first and higher-order problems. The first-order problem is sufficient for the prediction of the microbuckling stress of the composite. The zero-order problem is solved by the standard high-fidelity generalized method of cells micromechanical analysis. As to the first-order problem, which is coupled to the former, an enhancement of this micromechanical analysis is derived and employed for its solution. Higher-order problems can be also solved by the offered enhancement. The veracity of the prediction of the offered method is illustrated by comparisons with various exact, approximate and experimental results. The proposed method is applied for the prediction of the response and microbuckling of bi-layered, continuous fiber composites and short-fiber composites. In addition, the method is implemented for the prediction of global and local buckling stress of laminated plates under cylindrical bending and for the microbuckling of two and three-dimensional orthogonal lattice blocks.