MONITORING THE MICROMECHANICS OF REINFORCEMENT IN CARBON-FIBER EPOXY-RESIN SYSTEMS

The technique of laser Raman spectroscopy (LRS) was employed to obtain the interfacial shear stress (ISS) distribution along a short high-modulus carbon fibre embedded in epoxy resin at different levels of applied stress. Up to 0.6% applied strain, the ISS reached a maximum at the bonded fibre ends and decayed to zero at the middle of the fibre. At higher applied strains, the maximum value of the ISS distribution shifted away from the fibre ends towards the middle of the fibre. At the point of fibre fracture, fibre/matrix debonding was found to initiate at the fibre breaks. Further increase of applied strain resulted also in debonding initiation at the fibre ends. Current analytical stress-transfer models are reviewed in the light of the experimental data.