Patent ID: 8170846

Claim:
A method of computing an overall mechanical material constant of a composite material, the composite material including a first material component and a second material component in a matrix phase, mechanical material constants of the first material component, the second material component and the matrix phase being known, the method comprising: controlling a nonlinear equation setting component of a computer to prepare a nonlinear equation having the overall material constant of a virtual composite material as an unknown by defining, as a composite material, the virtual composite material in which the first material component is dispersed in a form of inner spherical particles in the matrix phase at a known volume fraction and the second material component is in a form of outer shell layers, each of which envelops each of the inner spherical particles as a coating layer of the predetermined thickness; and controlling an equation solver component of the computer to compute the overall material constant of the virtual composite material as the overall material constant of the composite material by solving the prepared nonlinear equation, and wherein the nonlinear equation is a recursive nonlinear equation which is obtained by defining, as the overall material constant of the virtual composite material to be computed, a material constant in each of surrounding areas of the outer shell layers enveloping the inner spherical particles in the virtual composite material.