Mechanical and environmental models for ceramic matrix composites

National Key Laboratory of Thermostructure Composite Materials, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an Shaanxi 710072, China

Corresponding author: phdhuimei@yahoo.com

Received: 30 June 2007
Accepted: 15 September 2007

Abstract

This paper outlines results from an experimental investigation on carbonaceous ceramic matrix composites (e.g., C/SiC) into mechanical behaviour under both monotonic tensile and step loadings, and into environmental behaviour exposed to oxidizing atmosphere containing oxygen. Complex damage phenomena like matrix microcracking, interficial debonding, fibre breakage and oxidation can occur in the serviced composites and result in progressive strain increase. These mechanisms can be modeled and formulated from the microscopic to macroscopic scales in order to predict damage development and final failure. The proposed models show good agreement with experiments and the ability to describe more complex damage procedure.