Longitudinal shear waves in a fiber-reinforced composite

Abstract

The propagation of time harmonic longitudinal shear waves in a composite with randomly distributed parallel fibers is studied. Assuming the composite to be statistically uniform, the phase velocity and the damping of the average waves are obtained as functions of the statistical and the mechanical parameters of the system. The theory leads to the well known Hashin and Rosen's formula for the axial shear modulus if the correlation in the positions of the fibers are ignored. The correlation terms are shown to have a significant effect on the damping property of the composite, especially at high frequencies and concentrations.