Composite Structures 132 (2015) 321330

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Composite Structures
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compstruct

Failure behavior of 2D C/SiC I-beam under bending load

Zongbei He, Litong Zhang, Bo Chen , Yongsheng Liu, Xiaoying Liu
Science and Technology on Thermostructural Composite Materials Laboratory, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xian, Shaanxi 710072, PR China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In this paper the failure behavior of 2D C/SiC I-beam under bending load was experimentally and numer-
Available online 9 May 2015 ically investigated. Due to material nonlinearity, the stress redistribution can be found with load increas-
ing. As a result of the inhomogeneity of matrix density, the strength of 2D C/SiC may be different for the
Keywords: top ange and the bottom ange, and especially the difference between tensile strength of top ange and
2D C/SiC composites compressive strength of bottom ange plays a critical role in determining the failure modes of 2D C/SiC
I-beam I-beam. On the other hand, because of the characteristics of manufacture techniques, 2D C/SiC I-beam can
Stress redistribution
be treated as a kind of composite structures with substructures and interfaces. Then, the failure of 2D
Delamination behavior
Cohesive zone model
C/SiC I-beam can be accompanied with delamination of the interfaces. To understand the delamination
behavior, the cohesive zone model was adopted and a discount method was used to estimate the prop-
erties of the interfaces. Finally, the delamination mechanism was studied.
2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction For 2D C/SiC components fabricated by chemical vapor inltra-

Due to attractive properties such as high specic strength,
specic modulus, low density and exceptional fracture toughness,
carbon ber reinforced SiC matrix composites (C/SiC) are increas-
ingly used as aerospace components [14]. During the design pro-
cess, it is crucial for structural engineers to understand the failure
behavior or the potential failure modes of these components. Up
till now, some researches about the failure behavior of C/SiC com-
ponents can be found. Heredia et al. have investigated the failure
behavior of C/SiC I-section junction under bending moments, and
found that the failure behavior is related to the delamination [5].
He et al. have studied the failure modes of C/SiC channel beam
under transverse loading [6]. Due to the severities of application
environments in thermal protection system (TPS), the failure
behavior of C/SiC components under thermal, vibrational and
acoustic loadings were also investigated [710]. According to these
research works, it is found that the failure behavior of C/SiC struc-
tural components is not only related to the loading conditions but
also related to the distribution of manufacturing aws such as
matrix density inhomogeneity or local delamination et al. For
example, Heredia et al. have found that the delamination of C/SiC
I-section junction can be affected by the size distribution of man-
ufacturing aws [5]. He et al. have found that in C/SiC channel
beam the failure can be induced by local damages owing to the
inhomogeneous matrix density [6].
tion process (CVI), the manufacturing aws are inevitable.
Meanwhile, the distribution of the manufacturing aws is related
to the type of the structural component. Due to the lay-up technol-
ogy, 2D C/SiC I-beam can be treated as a kind of composite struc-
ture which comprises four substructures as shown in Fig. 1(a). At
the interfaces between the substructures, manufacturing aws
can be easily formed which makes the delamination is prone to
be initiated. Hence, compared with beam components with simple
prole such as C-section, L-section et al. the failure behavior of 2D
C/SiC I-beam can be particular. As failure behavior is related to
stress distribution, material nonlinearity which is originated from
the internal damages of 2D C/SiC such as matrix micro-cracking,
ber/matrix debonding and ber pull-out [11] can also inuence
the failure behavior of 2D C/SiC I-beam.
In this paper, the failure behavior of 2D C/SiC cantilever I-beam
under bending load was investigated by both experimental and
numerical method. Material nonlinearity was considered in nite
element modeling, and the stress distribution was investigated.
To investigate the delamination behavior at interfaces between
the substructures, the cohesive zone model was adopted. Finally,
the delamination mechanism was discussed.
2. Experimental investigation
2.1. Specimen preparation

Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 029 88486068 626; fax: +86 029 88460667. The 2D C/SiC I-beam specimens used in this investigation were
E-mail address: vincent@nwpu.edu.cn (B. Chen). made using the isothermal chemical vapor inltration (CVI)

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compstruct.2015.04.066
0263-8223/ 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
322 Z. He et al. / Composite Structures 132 (2015) 321330
(a)
Fig. 1. Description of the 2D C/SiC I-beam: (a) the lay-up pattern of I-beam; (b) the actual 2D C/SiC I-beam.
technique. Fig. 1(a) shows the details of the geometry of the beam
section and lay-up pattern. It can be seen that the specimen can be
treated as a composition of two C-section beams and two rectan-
gular beams. The actual style of the 2D C/SiC I-beam is illustrated
in Fig. 1(b), and the beam length is 300 mm.
2.2. Experiment set-up
In this paper, the cantilever beam test was conducted. Fig. 2
shows the test conguration of the cantilever I-beam. To avoid
the local collapse caused by loading, a special jig was designed at
the loading end of the I-beam, and a special xture was used at
the xed end. Considering the length of the xed end, the actual
gauge length of the I-beam is 220 mm. During the test procedure,
the placement control mode was adopted and the loading rate is
0.5 mm/min.
3. Numerical investigation
3.1. Finite element model
The nite element model for 2D C/SiC I-beam was created by
ANSYS-APDL (Ansys Parameter Design Language). Fig. 3 shows
the sub-models and interfaces. Then the model was imported into
the commercial software ABAQUS, in which the C3D8R solid
Fig. 2. Test conguration of the cantilever beam.
(b)
elements were used to mesh the sub-models and the COH3D8
cohesive elements were used to mesh the interfaces.
As idealized boundary conditions seldom appear in real engi-
neering practice, to improve the predictability of FEM, it is neces-
sary to consider the uncertainty of boundary conditions [1214].
In the present study, the clamped boundary condition can be
replaced by a distribution of springs. On the section of web the
stiffness of the springs is set to be 1  1010 N/mm. On the top
ange and the bottom ange, four kinds of stiffness were used
and the values of the spring stiffness are listed in Table 1. The
boundary condition and loading area are illustrated in Fig. 4.
3.2. Material model
For 2D C/SiC composites, due to various energy dissipation
mechanisms such as the matrix micro-cracking, ber/matrix
debonding or sliding and the ber pull-out, material
non-linearity is inevitable [11]. Considering the damages within
the plane of plies, the constitutive equations with damage vari-
ables can be given as [15,16]:
Fig. 3. Description of the nite element model.
 Z. He et al. / Composite Structures 132 (2015) 321330 323

Table 1 Table 2
Values of spring stiffness. The material properties of 2D C/SiC.

K1 (N/mm) K2 (N/mm) K3 (N/mm) K4 (N/mm) E1 E2 E3 v12 v23 v13 G12 G23 G13
10 5 3
(GPa) (GPa) (GPa) (GPa) (GPa) (GPa)
Ux,y,z 1  10 1  10 1  10 10
2D C/SiC 110 110 80 0.1 0.05 0.05 25 20 20

2 3
2 3 1 m21
 1D1 1D 0 2 3
e1 6 1D1 2 E1 2 E2
7 r1
6 7 6 7 6
m12
4 e2 5 6  1D1 1D2 E1
1
2
1D2 E2
0 74 r2 75 the value of interfacial strength in the stress failure criterion. And
4 5
e12 0 0 1
2
r12 Eq. (3) can be rewritten as:
1D12 G12
 2  2  2  2  2  2
1 rI rII rIII rI rII rIII
1
ar0I ar0II ar0III r 0I r 0II r 0III
where D1 , D2 and D12 are damage variables associated with the lon-
gitudinal, the transverse tensile modulus and the in-plane shear 4
modulus. And the damage variables are dened as: where r (i I; II; III) can be considered as effective interfacial
 0i
8 q
>  strength. By changing the value of a, the effective value of interfa-
< Di 1  EEi i 1; 2
i cial strength can be adjusted. To simulate the propagation of delam-
q 2
>
: D12 1  G 12 ination crack the power law criterion based on the strain energy
G12
release rate (SERR) is adopted, which is expressed as follows:
where Ei and E i denote the initial modulus and the elastic-damage
GI GII GIII
modulus respectively, and G12 and G  12 denote the initial in-plane b 5
GIC GIIC GIIIC
shear modulus and the elastic-damage in-plane shear modulus
respectively. The evolution laws of these damage variables can be where Gi and GiC (i I; II; III) are corresponding SERR and critical
determined as presented in [6]. Based on constitutive equations, a SERR under the pure modes I, II and III respectively. Similarly, Eq.
user-dened subroutine (UMAT) was developed and used in FEM. (5) can be rewritten as
The initial material properties of 2D C/SiC are listed in Table 2 GI GII GIII
To model the interface debonding, the cohesive zone model was 1 6
bGIC bGIIC bGIIIC
used. Up to now, some cohesive zone models have been proposed
[1719]. Among them, the bilinear CZM is prevailing for its sim- where b is an empirical parameter to adjust the value of energy
plicity as well as adequate accuracy [20]. For bilinear CZM, the sep- release rate.
aration strength and interface fracture energy are decisive [21]. To eliminate the inuence of the cohesive zone elements on the
Usually, the parameters of CZM can be determined by some overall mechanical behavior of structure, a relative high initial
standard tests such as DBC and ENF test [20,2224]. However, for interface stiffness is recommended. However, a large value of
2D C/SiC these parameters can be affected by the interface matrix interface stiffness may cause numerical problems. So, the initial
density as well as manufacturing aws on the interface. So the interface stiffness should be in a reasonable range. Some research
parameters obtained by standard tests may be not suitable for works indicate that the initial interface stiffness (k) between 1012
2D C/SiC components in practice. In this paper, a trial and error and 1015 N=m3 is appropriate [20]. To improve the computational
method was used to determine the parameters of CZM for 2D convergence the viscosity coefcient u 0:001 was also adopted.
C/SiC I-beam which is a discount method based on the standard All the initial parameters of CZM are listed in Table 3.
test results of 2D C/SiC composites [24].
To describe the onset of the delamination damage, the quadra-
4. Results and discussion
tic stress failure criterion is used, and can be presented as:
 2  2  2 4.1. Characteristics of stress distribution
rI rII rIII
a2 3
r0I r0II r0III
For 2D C/SiC I-beam, the stress distribution can be affected by
where ri and r0i (i I; II; III) are stress components and correspond- material nonlinearity which originated from the internal damages
ing interfacial strength related to pure I, II and III delamination such as matrix micro-cracking, ber/matrix debonding.
modes respectively. a is a parameter which can be used to adjust Fig. 5(a) and (b) illustrate the distribution of damage variable D1

a Loading b K1
area
K2
K3
K4
K3
K2
K1
Fig. 4. Description of boundary conditions of the nite element model: (a) boundary condition and loading area; (b) arrangement of the spring stiffness.
324 Z. He et al. / Composite Structures 132 (2015) 321330

Table 3 toward to the bottom ange. Fig. 6(b) depicts the variation of shear
Initial values of CZM parameters. stress across the beam section. It can be seen that when the dam-
r0I (MPa) r0II (MPa) r0III (MPa) GIC (J/m2) GIIC (J/m2) GIIIC (J/m2) ages were not considered the distribution of shear stress is para-
bolic and the maximum shear stress is located at the geometric
50 25 25 737 1083 1083
mid-plane of the beam section, but when the damages were con-
sidered the distribution characteristics of shear stress will be more
complex. Due to the shift of neutral axis, the value of compressive
and D12 respectively. For 2D C/SiC, damage variable D1 mainly
stress on the beam section will be bigger than the value of tensile
results from matrix cracking which can be activated when tensile
stress.
stress exceeds the matrix cracking stress, and damage variable
D12 is controlled by tensile and shear stress when the stress level
4.2. Failure mode
exceeds the activation stress. As the matrix cracking stress for D1
is higher than the activation stress of D12 , the distribution area of
Fig. 7 shows the failure morphologies of two I-beam specimens.
D1 is smaller than the one of D12 . Fig. 5(c) shows the variations
Fig. 7(a) and (b) depict the failure mode of 1# specimen. It can be
of D1 and D12 across the beam section near the xed end. It can
seen that the nal failure of 1# I-beam is located at the top ange
be seen that with the distance increasing the value of D1 decreases
where the fracture and delamination can be observed. However, on
gradually until point A is arrived. After point A the damage variable
the bottom ange no evident damages can be found as shown in
remains to be zero. On the other hand, the variation of D12 can be
Fig. 7(b). Fig. 7(c) and (d) depict the failure mode of 2# specimen.
divided into three parts. Before point B, the damage variable D12 is
Similar with 1# specimen, on the top ange delamination can be
mainly controlled by tensile stress and shear stress, and between
found, but the nal failure is initiated on the bottom ange.
point B and point C the tensile stress become trivial and D12 is
Fig. 7(d) shows the failure morphologies on the bottom ange. It
mainly affected by shear stress. After point C, shear damage can
can be seen that near the xed end the inclined crack is initiated.
be inactivated by compressive stress. Meanwhile, it can be seen
Meanwhile, delamination can be also found.
that at point C the beam section is divided into two regions: tensile
The different nal failure modes imply the ultimate load of the
region (denoted by I) and compressive region (denoted by II).
2D C/SiC I-beam under bending load is controlled by different
Considering the damages, the distribution of S11 and S12 can be
properties of 2D C/SiC composites. When the nal failure is located
affected accordingly. Fig. 6 shows the distributions of normalized
at the top ange the ultimate load is related to the tensile strength
value of S11 and S12 on the beam section. In Fig. 6(a) it can be seen
(St ) of 2D C/SiC, and the failure morphology embodies the fracture
that when the damages are not taken into account, the stress dis-
of 2D C/SiC as shown in Fig. 8(a). Fig. 8(b) shows the failure mor-
tribution (denoted by UD) is linear across the beam section, and
phologies on the bottom ange, it can be seen that the failure crack
the neutral axis where the value of S11 equals to zero is located
is inclined, and at end of the crack multiple delaminations are trig-
at geometric mid-plane of the beam section. However, when the
gered which is a kind of typical compressive failure characteristics
damages are considered the variation of S11 across the beam sec-
of 2D C/SiC. It is reasonable that in this case the ultimate load is
tion will not be linear anymore, and the neutral axis will also shift

Fig. 5. Distribution of damages: (a) for D1 ; (b) for D12 ; (c) variation of D1 and D12 across the beam section.

Fig. 6. Distribution of stresses: (a) for S11 ; (b) for S12 .

 Z. He et al. / Composite Structures 132 (2015) 321330 325

a b
Fracture
Top flange

Delamination Bottom flange

c d

Delamination Bottom flange

Top flange Delamination

Crack

Fig. 7. Failure morphologies of 2D C/SiC I-beam: (a) for the top ange of 1# specimen; (b) for the bottom ange of 1# specimen; (c) for the top ange of 2# specimen; (d) for
the bottom ange of 2# specimen.

a b
Fracture
Delamination
Crack

Delamination

Fig. 8. Comparison of failure morphologies: (a) failure morphology on the top ange of 1# specimen; (b) failure morphology on the bottom ange of 2 # specimen.

1 1

c c
S S

t t

Fig. 9. Illustrations of the effect of DS and Dr on the ultimate load: (a) when DS > Dr; (b) when DS < Dr.

500 m 500 m

Fig. 10. Comparison of microstructures of the top ange: (a) for 1# specimen; (b) for 2# specimen.
326 Z. He et al. / Composite Structures 132 (2015) 321330

500 m 500 m

Fig. 11. Comparison of microstructures of the bottom ange: (a) for 1# specimen; (b) for 2# specimen.

by rc ) and maximum tensile stress (denoted by rt ) on the beam

12 section (denoted by Dr) which results from the material nonlin-
1#
earity as discussed in Section 4.1. Fig. 9 illustrates how the ultimate
2#
10 load can be affected by DS and Dr. In Fig. 9(a) as DS is bigger than
Dr, the tensile stress reaches the tensile strength rstly which
8 implies the ultimate load (F u ) is controlled by the tensile strength.
Accordingly, if the tensile strength become bigger and meanwhile
Load(kN)

6 the compressive strength is smaller, then DS may be smaller than

Dr as shown in Fig. 9(b), and in this case the failure can be con-
4 trolled by the compressive strength, and moreover the ultimate
load F u will be bigger than the one in Fig. 9(a).
2 Fig. 10 shows the microstructure of the top anges for 1# and
2# specimen respectively. It can be seen that for the matrix density
of 1# specimen (Fig. 10(a)) is much lower than the density of 2#
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 specimen (Fig. 10(b)) Accordingly, the tensile strength of 1# spec-
Displacement(mm) imen is smaller than the tensile strength of 2# specimen. On the
other hand, for the bottom ange there both exist pores in the
Fig. 12. Loaddisplacement curves of 2D C/SiC I-beam.
two specimens, but the quantity of pores of 1# specimen
(Fig. 11(a)) is much fewer than those of 2# specimen (Fig. 11(b)).
controlled by the compressive strength (SC ) of 2D C/SiC. Therefore Due to the manufacturing aws, the compressive strength of 2D
the ultimate load of 2D C/SiC I-beam can be affected by two fac- C/SiC on the bottom ange in 2# specimen will be less than that
tors: one is the difference between the tensile strength and com- of 1# specimen. So, according to Fig. 9, the ultimate load of 2#
pressive strength of 2D C/SiC (denoted by DS), and the other is specimen will be greater than that of 1# specimen as shown in
the difference between the maximum compressive stress (denoted Fig. 12. This result also implies that for 2D C/SiC I-beam it is

6000
1-T
5000 2-T
Longitudinal strain()

1-B
4000
2-B
3000
2000
1000
0
-1000
-2000
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Load(kN)
10000 1-T
2-T
8000 1-B
Longitudinal Strain()

2-B
6000

4000

2000

-2000
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Load(kN)

Fig. 13. Strain responses of 2D C/SiC I-beam: (a) arrangement of strain gauges; (b) strain response of 1# specimen; (c) strain response of 2# specimen.
 Z. He et al. / Composite Structures 132 (2015) 321330 327

favorable to put the ange with more manufacturing aws on the as the manufacturing aws at the interface, the corresponding
compressive side. parameter values in CZM cannot be determined uniquely. In this
paper based on the results obtained by standard tests, the trial
4.3. Delamination behavior and error method was adopted to nd out the proper values of
the parameters. Fig. 14 shows the strain responses with different
4.3.1. The effect of CZM parameters on delamination CZM parameter values, in which C-1, C-2, C-3 and C-4 denote the
Based on the failure modes discussed above, the nal failure of values with a b 1, a b 0:5, a b 0:25 and
2D C/SiC I-beam is accompanied with delamination. To monitor the a b 0:125 respectively. It can be seen that when
delamination the strain responses were recorded. Fig. 13 shows the a b 0:125 there exists knee point in the strain response which
longitudinal strain responses near the xed end of 2D C/SiC implies the delamination can be initiated under this condition.
I-beam. Fig. 13(a) illustrates the locations of the strain gauges, in However, for C-1, C-2 and C-3 the strain responses are almost lin-
which two strain gauges were used on the top ange denoted by ear, and under these conditions no evident delamination can be
1-T and 2-T respectively and two strain gauges were used on the found. Fig. 15 illustrates the failure morphologies of the interfaces
bottom ange denoted by 1-B and 2-B respectively. for the different CZM parameters. In Fig. 15(a) the maximum value
Fig. 13(b) and (c) show the strain responses of 1# and 2# specimen of interface damage is about 0.94 which is located at the inner
respectively. It can be seen that the tensile strain response is quite edges of the top ange. With the decrease of the CZM parameter
different from compressive strain response. And for both two spec- values, interface damages propagate from the inner edge to the
imens, there exists a knee point on the tensile strain curve. After
the knee point, the strain increases rapidly until the ultimate load
is reached. The existence of knee points on the strain curve implies Table 4
delamination is initiated before the nal failure of the beam. Values of SERR for G-1, G-2, G-3 and G-4.
To investigate the effect of interfacial properties of 2D C/SiC
G-1 G-2 G-3 G-4
I-beam on delamination behaviors, nite element modeling with
GIC (J/m2) 23 43 92 183
CZM was adopted. However, as interfacial properties of 2D C/SiC
GIIC GIIIC (J/m2) 34 63 135 269
I-beam are related to the distribution of the matrix density as well

3000 4000
3500 G-1
C-1 G-2
2500
Longitudinal Strain()

C-2
Longitudinal Strain()

3000 G-3
C-3 G-4
2000
C-4 2500

1500 2000
1500
1000
1000
500
Knee point 500
0 0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Load(kN) Load(kN)

Fig. 14. Strain responses with different CZM parameters. Fig. 16. Strain responses with different SERR.

Fig. 15. Failure morphologies at the interfaces for different CZM parameters: (a) for C-1; (2) for C-2; (3) for C-3; (4) for C-4.
328 Z. He et al. / Composite Structures 132 (2015) 321330

Fig. 17. Interface damages for condition G-2 at different loads: (a) 2.5 kN; (b) 4.8 kN; (c) 6.1 kN; (d) 7.1 kN.

500 m 250 m

Fig. 18. Delamination morphologies of the top ange: (a) distribution of delamination cracks; (b) delamination crack in transverse ber tows.

in Table 4. Fig. 16(a) illustrates effects of the strain energy release

250 m
Fig. 19. Details of delamination cracks in transverse ber tows.
outer edge of the top ange. Meanwhile, damages can be also ini-
tiated at the interface of the web. When a b 0:125 at the top
ange the delamination of interfaces can be fully activated on
the top ange as shown in Fig. 15(d).
Furtherly, the effect of SERR on the delamination behavior was
investigated with a 0:125, and the values for the SERR are listed
rate on the delamination behavior. It can be seen that for different
SERR, the strain responses are almost same before the knee point,
but after the knee point the strain responses are much different.
When the value of SERR is low, the strain after delamination is also
low. Comparing the strain responses above with the experimental
results, it can be found that when a 0:125 and b 0:058 (G-2)
the modeling results t the experimental results better. Fig. 17
shows the damage distribution for condition G-2 at different loads.
It can be seen that near the xed end damages can be found at the
top ange, bottom ange and web, and when the load is about
4.8 kN the delamination can be rstly initiated on the top ange.
4.3.2. The mechanism of delamination
According to the discussion above, on the top ange the delam-
ination precedes the fracture, and on the bottom ange the fracture
may cause multiple delaminations. Fig. 18 illustrates the delamina-
tion morphologies of mid-plane of the top ange. As can be seen in
Fig. 18(a), there exist matrix breakages and debonding cracks.
However, the cracks mainly exist in transverse ber tows with
intervals and are not bridged. Fig. 18(b) shows a debonding crack
in transverse ber tows. It can be seen that no evident cracks can
be found on the left and right sides of the debonding ber tow.
 Z. He et al. / Composite Structures 132 (2015) 321330
500 m
Fig. 20. Delamination morphologies on bottom ange: (a) characteristics of cracks; (b) delamination cracks in ber tows.
100 m
Fig. 21. Details of delamination cracks: (a) buckling of bers in longitudinal ber tow; (b) delamination cracks in transverse ber tow and longitudinal ber tow.
Fig. 19 shows cracks in three transverse ber tows in detail. It can
be seen evidently that these cracks in transverse ber tows result
in the debonding, and when the matrix density is low the ber
tow can be even splitted. The characteristics of cracks imply that
the debonding crack is initiated at inside of the mid-plane of the
top ange and then propagate toward the outside along the trans-
verse ber tows, and these are also consistent with the damage
evolution interpreted by FEM in Section 4.3.1.
For the bottom ange, the delamination is harder to be initiated
compared with the top ange. However, unlike the top ange the
bottom ange may suffer buckling under the compressive stress,
and subsequently bringing about multiple delaminations. Fig. 20
shows the crack distribution on the mid-plane of the bottom
ange. In Fig. 20(a) some inclined matrix cracks can be found cor-
responding to the compressive stress, and these cracks result in
breakage of the matrix. In Fig. 20(b) the delamination on the
mid-plane of the bottom ange can also be found. Meanwhile there
exists buckling of longitudinal ber tows, which seldom exists in
the delamination of the top ange. Fig. 21 shows more details of
the delamination behavior on the bottom ange. In Fig. 21(a) some
bers were fractured, which results from buckling of the longitudi-
nal ber tow. It is noteworthy that except the ber breakage the
buckling of longitudinal ber tow can also result in the debonding
crack (Fig. 21(a)). In Fig. 21(b) it can be seen that between the lon-
gitudinal ber tow and the transverse ber tow there exist
debonding cracks owing to the buckling of the longitudinal ber
tow. Above the transverse ber tow there also exist debonding
cracks resulted from the propagation of transverse cracks.
5. Conclusion
In this paper, the failure behavior of 2D C/SiC I-beam under
bending load was investigated. Because of the material nonlinear-
ity, the neutral axis of 2D C/SiC I-beam beam section will shift
toward to the bottom ange, which makes the compressive stress
surpass the tensile stress. Due to the redistribution of stresses as
well as the existence of manufacturing aws, the nal failure of
329
250 m
100 m
2D C/SiC I-beam can be initiated at the top ange and the bottom
ange. When DS > Dr, it is most likely that the top ange suffers
nal failure, and if DS < Dr the nal failure is prone to be initiated
at the bottom ange.
2D C/SiC I-beam can be treated as a kind of composite structure
which comprises four substructures and interfaces. With the aid of
cohesive zone modeling, the delamination behavior of the interfaces
was investigated. It was found that as the existence of manufactur-
ing aws at the interfaces, the effective interface strengths and strain
energy release rates of the interfaces are much lower than those of
2D C/SiC composites. With load increasing, the delamination cracks
can be initiated at the inner side of the top ange, and then the cracks
propagate toward to the outer side of the top ange along the trans-
verse ber tows. For the bottom ange, multiple delaminations can
be activated by the compressive stress. In this case, the propagation
of delamination cracks in transverse ber tows is accompanied with
bucking of bers in longitudinal ber tows.
Acknowledgement
The authors acknowledge the support of the Chinese National
Foundation for Natural Sciences under Contracts (Nos. 51002120,
51032006), and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central
Universities (No. 3102014KYJD011).
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