The matrix–fiber interaction effect on the avalanche breaking in the failure process of composite materials

Abstract

Diverse researches try to explain, phenomenologically, the avalanche breaking in composite materials. Most of them are based on fiber bundle model (FBM) where the failure process can be characterized by different parameters. However, these researches treat this phenomenon by taking into account only the breaking fibers process by neglecting the effect of the matrix which constitutes a principal component of the composite materials. This consideration comes from the fact that the quantification of the fiber–matrix interaction is not always evident due to the wide variety intrinsic property of composite materials. Indeed, in our investigation, we have modeling this interaction by a noise term. This latter gives us a different results than the ones obtained in the classical model (FBM) where the effect of the matrix on the breaking fibers is neglected. Therefore, the introduction of the noise interaction matrix–fiber showed a delaying effect of the failure process by subdividing the avalanche breaking on two successively stages separated by delaying duration which increases linearly with the noise term. The effect of the term noise becomes less important when increasing both temperature and applied load, thus the avalanche breaking is reduced to a one single stage. Moreover, the life time material increases exponentially with the noise term. These results are more similar to the ones obtained by the regular fibers substitution process.