INFLUENCE OF SPATIAL CORRELATIONS ON CRACK BRIDGING BY FRICTIONAL FIBERS

The effect of fibre interaction on matrix cracking in a unidirectional fibre-reinforced composite is analyzed. It is assumed that the matrix material contains a crack in a plane perpendicular to the fibres. Fib res, remaining intact, debond from the matrix and then act as bridging ligaments in the crack wake. The debonding process is accompanied by frictional sliding governed by a Coulomb friction law. Fibres are cons idered to be randomly located in the transverse plane. The fibre axial stress and longitudinal displacement are expressed in terms of the so lution to a model problem for a single fibre in an ambient stress fiel d due to all other fibres and applied load. The stress field produced by the other fibres is described using an ensemble averaging procedure . The radial distribution function g(r) that provides a quantitative m easure of the correlations between the positions of different fibres i s evaluated numerically from the Percus-Yevick equation for hard disks . The dependence of the fibre axial stress on the relative fibre-matri x displacement is examined for different values of the volume fraction of fibres. The resulting stress-displacement law is compared with res ults for other choices of the function g(r) and with a law given by a concentric cylinder model. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.