A new progressive damage model to calculate the strength of random short-fiber composites

In this paper a new equivalent laminated analogy is presented to estimate the strength of 2-D random short-fiber composites. In the present model, random short-fiber composites are replaced by an equivalent laminated model. An incremental algorithm is presented to obtain the stress-strain behavior of this composite using the progressive damage analysis up to final failure point. Comparing the results of this method with some experimental investigations available in the literature shows that the result of the present method is reliable.