Elastic analysis of a cracked ellipsoidal inhomogeneity in an infinite body

In particle or short-fiber reinforced composites, cracking of reinforcement s is a significant damage mode because the cracked reinforcements lose load carrying capacity. This paper deals with elastic stress distributions and load carrying capacity of intact and cracked ellipsoidal inhomogeneities. T hree dimensional finite element analysis has been carried out on intact and cracked ellipsoidal inhomogeneities in an infinite body under uniaxial ten sion and pure shear. For the intact inhomogeneity, as well known as Eshelby 's solution, the stress distribution is uniform in the inhomogeneity and no nuniform in the surrounding matrix. On the other hand, for the cracked inho mogeneity, the stress in the region near the crack surface is considerably released and the stress distribution becomes more complex. The average stre ss in the inhomogeneity represents its load carrying capacity, and the diff erence between the average stresses of the intact and cracked inhomogeneiti es indicates the loss of load carrying capacity due to cracking damage. The load carrying capacity of the cracked inhomogeneity is expressed in terms of the average stress of the intact inhomogeneity and some coefficients. It is found that a cracked inhomogeneity with high aspect ratio still maintai ns higher load carrying capacity.