Effects of Temperature, Oxidation and Fiber Preforms on Fatigue Life of Carbon Fiber-Reinforced Ceramic-Matrix Composites

In this paper, the effects of temperature, oxidation and fiber preforms on the fatigue life of carbon fiber-reinforced silicon carbide ceramic-matrix composites (C/SiC CMCs) have been investigated. An effective coefficient of the fiber volume fraction along the loading direction (ECFL) was introduced to describe the fiber architecture of preforms. Under cyclic fatigue loading, the fibers broken fraction was determined by combining the interface wear model and fibers statistical failure model at room temperature, and interface/fibers oxidation model, interface wear model and fibers statistical failure model at elevated temperatures in the oxidative environments. When the broken fibers fraction approaches to the critical value, the composites fatigue fracture. The fatigue life S-N curves and fatigue limits of unidirectional, cross-ply, 2D, 2.5D and 3D C/SiC composites at room temperature, 800 A degrees C in air, 1100, 1300 and 1500 A degrees C in vacuum conditions have been predicted.