Journal
COMPOSITES SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Volume 66, Issue 10, Pages 1348-1353Publisher
ELSEVIER SCI LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.compscitech.2005.09.010
Keywords
unidirectional composites; Stochastic fracture; statistical strength; critical cluster; synchrotron X-ray microtomography
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Fibrous arrays and composites are among the strongest structures created by man or found in nature. Such materials often fail in a slow, cumulative fashion, suppressing the sudden occurrence of rapid structural collapse. Our classical understanding of the statistical tensile strength and failure of unidirectional composites is usually based on a stochastic model where the key predictor is the size (N*) of a critical cluster of adjacent broken fibres, which inevitably leads to final composite failure. Here we show, via direct measurements using high-resolution synchrotron X-ray tomography, that in a quartz-epoxy composite the classical stochastic theory underpredicts - by a factor 3-5 - the size N* of the critical 'failed-fibre' cluster. A simple fracture mechanics argument which relates the critical fibre cluster size to the material strength is proposed to account for our data. (c) 2005 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available