Paper number 282

CORRELATION BETWEEN EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS AND FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS OF A MODEL COMPOSITE CONTAINING AN INTERPHASE WITH KNOWN PROPERTIES

S. A. Hayes, R. Lane and F. R. Jones

Department of Engineering Materials, Sheffield University, Portobello Street, Sheffield,
S1 3JD, England.

Summary

This paper reports a study of the effect of an interphase on strain development in fibre fragments obtained during fragmentation. In order to form an interphase, an epoxy resin with known properties was applied to the surface of unsized reinforcing fibres and cured. These were then embedded within a matrix resin coupon, for fragmentation testing. The findings of the experimental study indicated that there was no difference in the fragment length observed in the samples when a soft interphase was present, however when a hard interphase was present, the fragment length was slightly reduced. A finite element model was used to examine the strain development in more detail. This revealed that, for a soft coating, at the interphase thickness used in the study, the effect of the interphase properties was minimal. However increasing the thickness of the coating would increase the effect of the interphase.

Keywords

fibre fragmentation, discrete interphase, finite element modelling, load transfer, interphase thickness.