Biomaterials such as bone and dentin have hierarchical heterogeneous structure and
display remarkable damage tolerance, toughness, and strength. The recent challenge
is to imitate these structural properties in synthetic materials such as superior
nanocomposites. Simulation studies in composites typically focus on simulation of
damage propagation due to material heterogeneity such as reinforcements or defects.
This paper shows the utility of the mass spring system (MSS) proposed in our
previous work in effective simulation of stress distributions in various composite
structures. For bench-marking, we compared simulation results of the MSS model for
composites with finite element simulations and validated the model using the
experimental data for in-plane tension and in-plane shear tests. Thereafter,
we applied the model to investigate behavior of composite materials. The
results obtained using the MSS model emphasize that stress distributions and
subsequent probable crack propagation in composite structures depend on
dispersion, geometry and properties of reinforcements and matrix properties as
well.
