What is it about?

My best work in the field of fibre reinforced composite materials to-date is on fibre-fibre interaction. For a long time, going as far back as Riley in the 60s,Wagner et al. and Amer et al. in the 90s have reported studies on fibre-fibre interaction, findings from their studies have not been able to answer the question of stress transfer and stress uptake within the fibre in the presence of another fibre nearby. Here in this study by simple computer simulation using finite element analysis, we have revealed the stress distribution in the fibre in the presence of a neighbouring fibre and how the stress profile changes as the lateral separation distance and overlap distance changes. More importantly, we found that there is a disruption in the stress distribution when the overlap is partial, we found that as the lateral distance increases, the load sharing property of the matrix and fibre kicks in, forcing the fibre to take up higher and higher stress. These features may compromise the ability of the fibre to provide effective reinforcement to the composites as stress risers as such could cause early fibre fibre.

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Why is it important?

The findings from this study on fibre-fibre interactions is important for (1) designing fibre composite material, (2) post-mortem analysis of fibre composite failure and finally (3) repair of damaged fibre composite material.

Perspectives

This study is important also because of the simplicity of the (FE) method used in evaluating the problem and answering the question of how stress uptake occurs during fibre-fibre interaction. It is hoped that more (future) work as such can be carried out, e.g. direct measure of fibre stress uptake in experimental studies of fibre-fibre interaction in composites, to compare the results with the predictions reported here.

Dr Kheng Lim Goh
Newcastle University

Read the Original

This page is a summary of: Effects of fibre–fibre interaction on stress uptake in discontinuous fibre reinforced composites, Composites Part B Engineering, February 2016, Elsevier,
DOI: 10.1016/j.compositesb.2015.10.015.
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