Paper number 395

STRESS CONCENTRATION IN ALUMINA/FIBRE EPOXY MODEL COMPOSITES

H. MAHIOU¹,², A. BEAKOU² and R.J. YOUNG¹

1Manchester Materials Science Centre - UMIST Grosvenor Street
Manchester M1 7HS, UK
2Laboratoire de Recherches et Applications en Mécanique Avancée
IFMA - B.P. 265 - F63175 Aubière Cedex - FRANCE

Summary

In composite materials, fibre/fibre interaction phenomena due to fibre failure are crucial in determining the composite fracture behaviour. In this paper, we use the fluorescence spectroscopy to study the stress transfer and redistribution induced by fibre fracture in two-dimensional Nextel-610 fibres/epoxy-resin micro-composites. The stress along the fibres was mapped at different load levels and specimens with different inter-fibre distance were used to study the fibre content effect. The experimental stress concentration factors (SCF) were smaller compared to values predicted from C2SAC model. As expected the 2D configuration allows to access to the upper bound of the SCF in real composites. The measured SCF values agree well with those reported, in recent study, for carbon-fibre/epoxy model composites.

Keywords

stress transfer, stress concentration factors, model composites, fluorescence spectroscopy, raman spectroscopy, stress concentrations, alumina fibres, interfacial shear stress.