Stress Concentrations from Single-Filament Failures in Composite Materials

The solution of the two-dimensional, elastic, multiple-filament-failure stress concentration problem led to the treatment of three-dimensional, elastic failure models and a two-dimensional, plastic failure model where an ideally plastic behavior of the matrix material adjacent to a broken filament was assumed. Another plastic behavior is proposed wherein the bond between the broken filament and the adjacent matrix material fails completely after reaching a prescribed stress level. This failure formulation is applied to five- and seven-element-width models as well as to the infinite element case. Both the bond failure and matrix yield models are then extended to the three-dimensional cases with both square and hexagonal element configurations.