Fracture toughness of composite materials reinforced by debondable particulates

Abstract

In this paper, cleavage cracking across a regular array of debondable particles was discussed through an energy analysis. It was found that the toughening effect of the particles is dominated by a parameter χ. Increasing the particle volume fraction or the particle size has beneficial effects to the overall fracture toughness. © 2003 Published by Elsevier Ltd. on behalf of Acta Materialia Inc.