Two-scale elastic property prediction of 3D printed continuous carbon fiber reinforced thermoplastic composite based on micro-computed tomography

A two-scale method combined with micro-CT is presented for the prediction of 3D printed continuous fiber reinforced thermoplastic composites. The proposed method is verified by tensile experiments. The distribution of voids and fibers is reconstructed and quantified by two micro-CT scans with different resolutions. Then the two-scale models are established according to the scanned data. Effective properties of fiber-rich region are predicted by the micro-scale analysis of the representative volume element, and then transferred into the meso-scale analysis. In meso-scale analysis, the high-fidelity generalized method of cells is applied to predicted elastic parameters of the printed samples. While maintaining the overall fiber volume fraction, the fiber volume fraction in the fiber-rich region is very important for the accuracy of prediction.