Fracture in Fiber Reinforced

Composite Material
:Mathematical Models and
Experimental Methods
 Contents

• Abstract

• Introduction

• Mathematical models and experimental methods

• Conclusion

• References
Abstract

• The high strength and damage resistance of the fiber is

reinforce Composites are important for many practical
applications.

• The purpose of this work is to review the growth, loss and

failure of fiber Reinforced composites of different models .

• For design, it is important to understand the fractures and

failures in fiber composite fibers (FRCs), Composite parts
with fracture hardness.
 Introduction
• Fibers consist of thousands of fibers, each between
5 and 15 micrometers in diameter, which makes it
beneficial to use textiles machines.

• Fiber-reinforced composite materials have been

widely used in engineering structures, such as the
automobile, defense, new energy and aeronautical
and aerospace industries.
 Conti...
• It is important to understand the fractures and
failures in fiber composite fibers (FRCs), composite
parts with fracture hardness.

• An important prelude to the FRC's catastrophic

failure, Usually stimulated by intralaminar fracture,
through the fracture that passes into the lumbar
plane, Matrix cracking and fiber matrix debounding
(Gamstedt et al. 1999).
Conti...
• In a comparison computational, The current method
gives accurate numerical predictions, both
quantitative (crack pattern) and quantitative (load
transfer curve).
 Mathematical Models

• Predict the mechanical behavior of materials beyond the

elastic limit an atomistic approach, especially fracture
behavior, has proven difficult.

• Problems in predicting an atomistic fracture stiffness, or

maximum tensile pressure the starting point is the length of
time involved in the treatment and the time scale process
zones, associated defects and, in most cases, plastic zones.
 Conti...

• Currently, calculations using molecular dynamics are still not

able to handle the size of the system associated with the action
zone around the crack tip (sometimes up to 10¹³ atoms), nor
are they capable of treating the scales of the desired time.

• High-performance fibres usually have diameters ranging from

10 I~m to 150 t~m and are amenable to be modeled using a
continuum approach.
 Conti...

• Unfortunately, fracture strength does not depend only on bulk

properties and it is very sensitive to the type and shape of
defects.

• Here are some fiber fracture in both homogeneous and

heterogeneous fibers.
 Homogeneous fibers
• Among them, those exhibiting a linear elastic and brittle
behaviour are the easiest to model.

• fracture stresses can be predicted using the well

established techniques of linear elastic fracture mechanics
(LEFM).

• Ductile fracture is a more involved problem and some

aspects of fibre failure using the techniques of elasto-plastic
fracture mechanics (EPFM) are briefly mentioned.
 Conti...

• Fracture of highly oriented polymer fibres deserves a

separate treatment because, although homogeneous, they
have a fibrillar microstructure and display characteristic
fracture behaviour.
 Homogeneous fiber
• Brittle behaviour
• Ductile behaviour
Brittle behaviour

• Brittle failure of homogeneous fibres can be modelled, at a

continuum level, using the tools of linear elastic fracture
mechanics (LEFM) because usually the main hypotheses on
which LEFM is based are satisfied when the rupture of a fibre
is brittle.

• The strain response is linear elastic, or almost linear, until

rupture, and the size of the fracture process zone is negligible
in comparison with other relevant lengths.
 Conti...

• This behaviour is exhibited in ceramic and glass fibres at

room temperature.

• All such fibres, crystalline and amorphous, share similar

fracture patterns; they are brittle and linear elastic at room
temperature and failure is usually initiated by flaws and
surface defects and less by the fibre microstructure.
 Conti...
• It is well known that analysis of a failure by LEFM involves
the presence of a crack, characterised by its stress intensity
factor K (a function of the stress state o-, a characteristic
length of the crack, usually its depth a, and the geometry of
the sample). The failure criterion is usually written as:

• where Kc, the fracture toughness of the material, is a

material property that depends on the temperature T, strain
rate de/dt, and constraint. The safest assumption is to
consider a state of plane strain, where Kc has its lower value.
Conti...
• The size and shape of internal and surface cracks are variable,
and this gives rise to variable strength in brittle fibres.

• where L is the fibre length, m the Weibull modulus, or o is the

characteristic strength, defined as the stress at which the
failure probability of a fibre of length Lo is 0.63 and 1-' the
gamma function.
Ductile behaviour
• Modelling fibre ductile fracture is an involved problem, even for
homogeneous and macro-defect-free fibres.

• Under tensile loading, fibres eventually reach an instability

point, where strain hardening cannot keep pace with loss in
cross-sectional area, and a necked region forms beyond the
maximum load.

• A central crack is nucleated, spreads radially and finally, when

approaching the fibre surface, propagates along localised shear
planes, at roughly 45 ~ to the axis, to form the 'cone' part of the
fracture.
 Conti...
• This is the typical cup-and-cone fracture of a ductile failure after
a tensile test.

• Ruptures under tensile loading and strong transversal forces, as

in drawing fibres through dies, are also different.
Conti...
• When void nucleation is easy, the fracture behaviour is
controlled by the growth and coalescence of voids:
growing voids reach a critical size, relative to their
spacing, and a local plastic instability develops between
voids forming a macroscopic flaw, which leads to fracture.
Heterogeneous fibers

• Composite fibers
• Hierarchical Fibres
 Composite fibers

• The simplest composite fibres are the B and SiC

monofilaments manufactured by chemical vapour
deposition of boron halide or silane gases onto a heated
substrate, normally W or C.
Conti...

• This led to the simplest fracture model for these composite

fibres, which assumed that the void behaved as an internal
elliptical crack, and obtained the fibre strength using the
LEFM criteria for homogeneous fibres described above.
Conti...

• Curtin assumed that the residual stresses were relieved by the

formation of annular cracks bridged on one side by the W and
on the other by the SiC.
• The critical stress for crack propagation into the brittle SiC
mantle was computed assuming that all the interfaces were
strongly bonded, and two cases were distinguished depending
on whether the W remained elastic or yielded plastically
before failure. The resulting values of the monofilament
strength were:
 Experimental methods
• Most of the present knowledge in this area is concerned with the
propagation of cracks in high-strength metals which are
elastically isotropic and resist fracture by plastic yielding ofthe
material near the crack tip.
Fracture in fibers

• Elastic behaviour
• Crack tip damage
• Catastrophic fracture
Elastic behaviour

• Two-dimensional solutions for the stress field in the vicinity

of the crack tip indicate that the basic features of a singular
variation of stress with distance from the crack tip, and an
opening-mode stress intensity factor, K,are preserved for
anisotropic materials.

• The most severe difficulty in applying classical fracture

mechanics to composites results from the inherently three-
dimensional nature of the problem.
 Conti...
• The in-plane stresses cannot be described meaningfiilly by
two-dimensional theory bccause they vary through the
thickness, and are discontinuous at the interface between
plies if the plies are different modulus in a given direction.

• The distribution of the in-plane stresses around the crack tip

is also similar to two-dimensional predictions for the 0"/90"
laminate, but not for the i45" laminate.
Conti...
• Figure compares the shape of isostress contours of w~,~, the
stress in the load direction, for isotropic, two-dimensional
anisotropic, and three-dimensional anisotropic solutions: the
three-dimensional results clearly indicate a degree of individual
ply identity not evident from the less rigorous solutions, which
are inherently symmetrical about the crack for a balanced
laminat.
 Conti...

• The foregoing suggests that two-dimensional theory may be useful

in obtaining an approximtion for the intensity of the in-plane
singular stress field which stirrounds the crack tip, particularly for
0"/90" laminates.

• The value of the stress field intensity, K,, may then be used in the
usual manner to describe the critical conditions, K,, when fi-actiire
occurs, provided certain conditions relating to the amount of
inelastic behavior at the crack tip are met
Conti...

• However, study of the details o fthe fixture process which

occiii- close to the crack tip re quires a rigorous three-
dimensional solution which can take into account the
interlaminar stresses and damage extension fi-om the clack tip.
Crack tip damage

• Every structural material used in tension relies upon some

form of "yielding" near regions of very high stress
concentration to avoid brittle fracture at very low applied
stress Ievels.

• For brittlc fiber matrix composites, "yielding" takes the form

of local intraply cracks propagating parallel to the fibers.

• Here termed subcracks, and interply delaminatioiis, forming a

zone of damage at such points as a crack tip.
Conti...

• The shape and size of the damage zone is thought to hear an

important relationship to the reresistance to crack propagation
of the laminate.

• The results suggest that the first danage will be subcracks in the
0"plies, formed by the in-plane shear stress; and in the plies,
formed by the stress in the 0" direction
Conti...

• Such subcracks ai-e observrd experimentally to form at the tip of

a sharp notch at very low levels of applied stress (Fig. 2),
Conti...
• Finally, at some critical value of applied stress, the fibers in
the 0⁰ ply fail, and catastrophic crack extension occurs.
Conti...
• Figure 3 shows the stress distribution ahead ofthe crack tip for
a sharp crack with and without subcracks.
 Conti...
• The results indicate a feature which is fimdamental to the
application of classical fracture mechanics: a region can
be defined around the crack tip so that outside of the
re$on the in-plane stresses follow a singular distri hution
and are identical to the singular stress distribution which
surrounds the region.
Catastrophic fracture
• A critical value of applied stress is reached for most
laminates whereupon complete separation of the
specimen occurs by the rapid propagation of the main
crack.

• The mode of fracture may be a logical extension of the

damage zone characteristics, as in the ligamented fracture
of the 0" ply of an 0"/90" laminate in Fig. 4 (a).
Conti...

• In the case of a 45⁰ graphite/epoxy laminate, the subcrack zone

spreads completely across even a four-in. wide specimen prior
to fracture.

• A (90⁰/90⁰/90⁰/90⁰/9⁰") laminate has a relatively small subcrack

zone at fracture, and the fracture stress is much lower than that
predicted by the ultimate strength criteria.
 Conti...

• Figure 5 indicates the behavior of the three laminates when the

ratio of fracture stress on the net cross-section to ultimate
strength is plotted against specimen width, while the specimen
proportions are held constant.
Dimensional fracture models
• A defect crystal, flawless, is expected to be the strongest
form of fiber.

• One dimensional model may represent an idealised

polymer fiber.
Conti...
• two-dimensional model, could be rolled up atomic crystal
sheet.
Conti...

• A perfect three-dimensional array of atoms can enhance

a crystal whisper.
Conti...

• A rough estimate of the tensile strength of a fiber that has

the advantage of being applies to all fibers, the detailed
nature of their intratomic forces because of the model
(Polayni, 1921; Rowan, 1949).

• Fracture behavior and mechanical properties composite and

each component (fiber, matrix and interface) was
introduced in a previous investiation and is briefly
summarized here for help assumptions (Gonzalez et al.,
2001), of the computational fracture model (Gonzalez et
al., 2004).
 Conti...

• The conduct of the comprehensive panels was determined

three-point bending test on beams marked in 8 mm the panel
is machined at a depth (D) and a span of 30 mm (S) With fibers
parallel to the beam axis.

• Although fatigue Crack fracture is a standard method of

determining resistance, in which no difference was found Initial
hardness of tie / SC composite panels consisting of an offer of
fatigue machine of 50 mm radius and 75 mm root radius In the
central part of the beam (Kamat et al., 1996).
 Conti...
• The fracture micro-mechanism followed the standard pattern
listed for these composites.

• Initially the damage was concentrated in a narrow strip before

the mark, Its width was equal to the thickness of the panel.

• Plastic The deformation of the strip matrix was severe and

fibrous fracture, followed by sliding friction between the fibers
and matrix, took place within the strip..
Conti...

• The last fracture for the fibers a long, long stretch of wind, which
began to grow through the matrix after gaining maximum load in
the test.

• Fracture surfaces provided evidence of fiber bridging and pull-

outs in Crackweek, in agreement with these fractures micro
mechanism.
Computational model
Model geometry and discretization
• A multi-scale modeling strategy, the central region was
subdivided into this central region shown in the figures .

• There was a fracture tests focus on capturing the maximum

load (from which the nominal fracture stiffness can be
calculated (Gonza´lez et al., 2004).
 Conti...

• There were fibers Mesh with 15 node quadratic pitcher

elements (C3D15) In the abacus) while around the fibers in the
matrix microstructured region.

• Failure the mechanism can be divided into fiber damage and

matrix damage and Model I and Model II failure attitudes The
matrix should be considered for dominant damage (Ridha et al.,
2014).
Conclusion

• Damage and fracture micro-mechanisms that control The

onset of fracture (ie, plastic deformation) matrix, brittle fiber
fracture and sliding fiber / matrix friction) were included in
the behavior of different stages.

• The current methods gives accurate numerical predictions,

both quantitative (crack pattern) and quantitative (load
transfer curve).
 Conti...
• It has been shown that the proposed method is suitable for
modeling complex failure behaviors in fiber reinforced
composite material.
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Thank you