Applications of Maxwell's methodology to the prediction of the effective properties of composite materials

The chapter first introduces a methodology, based on Maxwell's theory, as a powerful homogenization technique to estimate the effective properties of undamaged multiphase composite materials reinforced with particles having spherical, fibre, spheroidal, or ellipsoidal geometries. The methodology provides, for example, a method of estimating the effective thermoelastic properties of unidirectional plies for input into methods of estimating effective properties in general symmetric composite laminates. Maxwell's original approach was, however, concerned with the estimation of the effective conductivity of a cluster of uniformly distributed isotropic spherical particles, and his methodology enables this approach to be extended to orthotropic aligned ellipsoidal particles, provided that the principal axes for matrix and particle properties coincide with the directions of the semiaxes of the ellipsoidal particles. Results of this extension have important applications in the fuel cell and batteries fields of application.