A mass spring model applied for simulation and characterization of behavior of composite structures

Biomaterials such as bone and dentin have hierarchical heterogeneous structure and display remarkable damage tolerance, toughness, and strength. The recent challenge is to imitate these structural properties in synthetic materials such as superior nanocomposites. Simulation studies in composites typically focus on simulation of damage propagation due to material heterogeneity such as reinforcements or defects. This paper shows the utility of the mass spring system (MSS) proposed in our previous work in effective simulation of stress distributions in various composite structures. For bench-marking, we compared simulation results of the MSS model for composites with finite element simulations and validated the model using the experimental data for in-plane tension and in-plane shear tests. Thereafter, we applied the model to investigate behavior of composite materials. The results obtained using the MSS model emphasize that stress distributions and subsequent probable crack propagation in composite structures depend on dispersion, geometry and properties of reinforcements and matrix properties as well.