A DETAILED ANALYSIS OF CRACKS BRIDGED BY FIBERS .2. CRACKS OF INTERMEDIATE SIZE

IN THIS PART bridged cracks of intermediate size are studied. The goal is to determine the stress required for the propagation of bridged cr acks when they are too small for the predictions of AVESTON et al. (19 71), The Properties of Fibre Composites, IPC Science and Technology Pr ess to apply. Since the distributed spring approximations used in some previous attempts may not be valid for short cracks. an independent m odel is used where the discrete fibers and the slip at the fiber matri x interface are modeled explicitly. The results are also used to deter mine the conditions under which distributed spring models can be expec ted to yield reliable results.