Abstract: Composite materials are being used as structural elements for engineering applications in aerospace, automobile, and mechanical domains. To utilize composite materials in any application, the material being used needs to be fabricated in hundreds of numbers to test and characterize them for a statistical estimation of the elastic behaviour. Such an experimental process is time consuming, and the cost of experimentation also escalates. One of the solutions for these problems is to pre-design the composite materials using numerical models. A hierarchical multiscale numerical model has been implemented in this paper along with experimental validation with a view of applying these models for development of micro wind turbine blades. In this paper, E-Glass fibre reinforced polymer matrix composite (epoxy-resin: Ly556 and Hardener 951) is modelled using FEA method (Finite Elements used at micro and macroscale), implementing a hierarchical multiscale modelling scheme. A representative volume element (RVE) is used to model the E-Glass/Epoxy-resin composite at microscale consisting of the uniaxial fibres embedded in epoxy-resin polymer matrix. The material properties derived from the microscale finite element analysis is applied to the nodal points of the elements of the macroscale finite element model. The multiscale analysis provides both qualitative and quantitative results for experimental validation. An experimental test sample made of the E-Glass/Epoxy-resin composite is subjected to uniaxial tensile test. The experimental results validate the multiscale mechanical model built. The multiscale model predicts the maximum tensile strength with an error of 5 % and the breaking load with an error of 1 %. The location of breakage of sample predicted by the numerical model is confirmed by the experimental test specimen. With such validated numerical model, application in micro wind turbine blade would result in faster prototype development.

Keywords: Composite material, Micro wind turbine, E-Glass fiber, Tensile strength, FEA, Orthotropic Material, Numerical methods, Macrostructure, Microstructure.

| DOI: 10.17148/IARJSET.2022.9214