Design of Particulate-Reinforced Composite Materials

A microstructure-based model is developed to study the effective anisotropic properties (magnetic, dielectric or thermal) of two-phase particle-filled composites. The Green’s function technique and the effective field method are used to theoretically derive the homogenized (averaged) properties for a representative volume element containing isolated inclusion and infinite, chain-structured particles. Those results are compared with the finite element approximations conducted for the assumed representative volume element. In addition, the Maxwell–Garnett model is retrieved as a special case when particle interactions are not considered. We also give some information on the optimal design of the effective anisotropic properties taking into account the shape of magnetic particles.