RANDOM INELASTIC BEHAVIOR OF COMPOSITE-MATERIALS WITH LOCAL LOAD SHARING

The response of a very long composite layer being stretched beyond the elastic limit in a displacement controlled experiment is investigated . It is assumed that the load carried by a fiber is transferred, at fa ilure, to its two neighbors. This local load sharing rule is shown to lead to the propagation of the fiber breaking process and to be the so urce of random spatial variations in the loads carried by the fibers. Then, a set of evolution equations is derived that governs the spatial distribution of the random loads in three types of unbroken fibers. T he complexity associated with the determination of the solution to the se equations has led to a Monte Carlo study that suggested an approxim ate solution technique. It is shown that this simpler, approximate for mulation represents very well the initial set of equations. Finally, i t is shown that the local load sharing rule leads to a much higher pro bability of broken fibers and to higher loads carried by the fibers th an a global load sharing predicts. It is shown however that the mean v alue of these loads is well approximated by the global load sharing ru le except for the location of the peak which is largely overpredicted by the global load sharing model.