Salamone Salvatore, Propriétés physiques des empilements de fibres macroscopiques: une approche expérimentale, théorique et numérique (2018)

The purpose of this work is to understand how intrinsic shape of individual fibers controls the collective behavior of fiber stacks, in particular the mechanical (elasticity) and electrical properties. We consider long fibers, aligned towards one preferential direction with a significant disorder shape. Our study is experimental and numerical. We propose a two dimensions self consistent mean field model which describes the collective elasticity
from the individual properties of fibers: the disorder distribution and the bending modulus. We obtain an equation of state which describes with a good agreement the stacks elasticity, without any fit parameters, however up to a multiplicative constant. We obtain similar results between experimental and numerical studies.

Keywords : fiber, bundle/stack of fibers, statistical physics, mean field approximation, shape disorder, mechanical properties of materials, electrical properties.

PhD manuscript