THE INFLUENCE OF A NEIGHBOURING FIBRE ON FRAGMENTATION TEST DATA

摘要

The majority of work on the fibre/matrix interface has been performed on either bulk composites where it is difficult to isolate the effect of the interface, or single fibre model composites. The latter enables improvements in interfacial adhesion due to fibre sizing, surface treatment, matrix modulus etc, to be easily identified, but there is some ambiguity as to how these observations relate to the situation in a real composite. To overcome this restriction, a recent approach is to perform fragmentation tests on multi-fibre composite specimens consisting of a monolayer of two or more equispaced fibres in epoxy. This technique allows systematic variations in the interface properties to be evaluated under controlled conditions whilst encompassing the influence of neighbouring fibres. Thus the interaction between fibre breaks in adjacent fibres and the progression of the failure process may be observed. It is also possible to determine the influence of neighbouring fibres on the stress transfer efficiency of the interface.