Failure mechanism of continuous fiber-reinforced titanium matrix composite bling under rotational loading

Abstract

The failure mechanism in SiC fiber-reinforced TC17 matrix composite bling, consisting of a titanium matrix composite (TMC) core and titanium alloy cladding, was investigated by experiments and simulations. The failure process of the composite bling during rotational testing was captured by using a high-speed camera. The post-test broken sample pieces were examined by X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to assess the crack initiation and propagation. A damage and failure model of the TMC core was incorporated into the finite element method (FEM) code by using the user-material (UMAT) subroutine. According to the results of both the experiment and simulation, the fibers at upper part around the inner diameter of the TMC core damaged first with the increase of rotational speed. The damage then propagated radially through both TMC core and titanium alloy cladding. Failure of fiber resulted in the matrix damaged and bling broken subsequently. The numerical and test results were in good agreement and the FEM model can be used to predict the failure process of TMC bling.