Debonding or Breakage of Short Fibres in a Metal Matrix Composite

Abstract

For aluminium reinforced by aligned, short SiC fibres, a cell-model is used to analyse a rather short fibre surrounded by smaller particulates. Competition between failure by fibre fracture or by fibre-matrix decohesion is considered for the longer fibre, which is surrounded by an array of smaller particulates that do not fail. In the numerical, axisymmetric model, a cohesive zone model is used to represent debonding, while fibre fracture is represented by a critical value of the average tensile stress on a cross-section.