AN ANALYSIS PROCEDURE FOR QUANTIFYING THE FRAGMENTATION BEHAVIOR OF 2-D MULTI-FIBER ARRAYS

摘要

With composite materials being targeted for use in structural applications, concerns have increased about their long-term structural integrity, since conventional sub-critical flaw detection methodologies are generally not effective for composites. Furthermore, concerns about composite failure models that are typically used to predict failure behavior of composites in lieu of testing have also increased due to the 1995 research of Li et al. and the 2004 research of Kim et al. These research results employing micromechanics tests on multi-fiber microcomposites indicate that the underlying shear-lag models typically used to predict composite failure behavior show an increase in fiber-flaw density along the length of a composite fiber rather than the experimentally observed decrease. More recently Kim et al. have shown that the multiple fiber fracture process observed in a single fiber composite can be captured by statistical models based on lifetime analyses. The output parameters from these analyses may provide a basis for quantifying the fiber failure process in different composite materials. To test the validity of this method, the lifetime analyses approach is extended in this report to the fiber-fracture process in multi-fiber microcomposites.