Composite Materials Damage Modeling Based on Dielectric Properties

Composite materials, by nature, are universally dielectric. The distribution of the phases, including voids and cracks, has a major influence on the dielectric properties of the composite materials. The dielectric relaxation behavior measured by Broadband Dielectric Spectroscopy (BbDS) is often caused by interfacial polarization, which is known as Maxwell-Wagner-Sillars polarization that develops because of the heterogeneity of the composite materials. A prominent mechanism in the low frequency range is driven by charge accumulation at the interphases between different constituent phases. In our previous work, we observed in-situ changes in dielectric behavior during static tensile testing, and also studied the effects of applied mechanical and ambient environments on composite material damage states based on the evaluation of dielectric spectral analysis parameters. In the present work, a two dimensional conformal computational model was developed using a COMSOL™ multi-physics module to interpret the effective dielectric behavior of the resulting composite as a function of applied frequency spectra, especially the effects of volume fraction, the distribution of the defects inside of the material volume, and the influence of the permittivity and Ohmic conductivity of the host materials and defects.