Fracture toughness of thermoset composites reinforced by perfectly bonded impenetrable short fibers

The fracture toughness of brittle thermoset resins could be improved significantly by perfectly bonded tough, short fibers through both crack trapping and bridging effects. In this paper, the crack trapping effect was studied through the analysis of the change of strain energy associated with the crack propagation across a regular array of fibers, and the bridging effect was discussed based on the Andersson–Bergkvist model. The fracture resistance increases with the fiber volume fraction, and is independent of the elastic properties of the matrix, the crack length, and the cross-sectional diameter of the fibers.