Identification of Mechanical Properties and Damage of Composites at the Mesoscale based on an Inverse Method Coupled with Homogenization

The purpose of the present study is to propose a strategy for identifying the mechanical characteristics of fibers and the damage in composite materials, based on an inverse method coupled with homogenization. It consists, in a general and systematic way, in coupling a homogenization procedure chosen by the user, with an appropriate numerical optimization algorithm. The method can be interpreted as a procedure for passage from macroscopic to mesoscopic scale. In this respect, it is shown that our method is capable of providing estimates of mesoscopic properties that are difficult to obtain experimentally. The proposed identification method is applied to examples of damaged and undamaged composites including those made of woven and unwoven natural fibers of Alfa and a polyester resin matrix. Identification results obtained by the proposed inverse method are compared to data taken from the literature to show its effectiveness.