Toughening effect of continuous fiber bundles

In a continuous fiber reinforced brittle matrix composite, the transverse fracture is often dominated by the crack trapping and bridging effects as well as the fiber breakage. In this article, the toughening effect of flat fiber bundles with the cross-sectional aspect ratio, p, ranging from 0.05 to 5 is discussed in the context of energy analysis. With a constant size/spacing ratio of the fiber bundles, the fracture resistance increases monotonically with p, primarily due. to the influences on the crack front behavior. The elastic properties of matrix and the crack length have little effect on the critical energy release rate.