ON THE STRENGTH OF FIBER-REINFORCED CERAMIC COMPOSITES CONTAINING AN ELLIPTIC HOLE

This paper studies the tensile strength of a fiber reinforced ceramic composite containing a hole. The strength is determined on the basis o f a full analysis of matrix cracking in the presence of the hole and t he failure of crack bridging fibers. The crack bridging fibers are ass umed to undergo large amounts of slipping relative to the matrix and a re modeled as an array of springs. The dependence of the composite ten sile strength on fiber tensile strength, orthotropic parameters, hole size and shape parameters, and frictional shear stress at the fiber-ma trix interface is determined and described in terms of a universal set of nondimensional parameters. The effects of compressive residual str ess in the fibers upon the strength are also discussed.