FATIGUE BEHAVIOR RELATED TO INTERFACE MODIFICATION DURING LOAD CYCLING IN CERAMIC-MATRIX FIBER COMPOSITES

Ceramics reinforced with continuous fibres exhibit delayed failure under pulsating load. A micromechanical model describing the fatigue effects is proposed. It is based on a decrease in shear stress at the fibre/matrix interfaces, as a result of interfacial wear caused by see-saw sliding. The main features of this model are as follows. During the first load cycle, the material exhibits multiple matrix cracking and some fibre breaks. The system is then a serial set of matrix cracks, each of them bridged by a parallel set of intact or broken fibres. During subsequent cycles the interfacial shear stress decreases, leading to an increase in the failure probability of the bridging fibres. These changes give both a reduction of stiffness and a widening of the hysteresis loops. For a critical fraction of broken bridging fibres, instability occurs and the specimen fails, thus defining the lifetime. The higher the applied load, the higher is the initial damage on the first cycle and the faster the instability condition is reached. For peak stresses that are lower, but still higher than the proportionality limit, the material also changes but no failure occurs (up to 10(6) cycles), indicating that the interfacial shear stress decreases to a non-zero value; this limiting value controls the fatigue limit in the lifetime diagram.