Creep Strength of Discontinuous Fibre Composites

A unidirectional, discontinuous fibre composite is considered under conditions of steady state creep in the direction of reinforcement. The composite consists of noncreeping, discontinuous, perfectly aligned, uniformly distributed fibres which are perfectly bonded to a matrix obeying a power relation between stress and strain rate. Expressions for the interface stress, the creep velocity profile adjacent to the fibres and the creep strength of the composite are derived. Previous results for the creep strength, sc = aVfs0 ( \frac[( Î )\dot] [( Î )\dot] 0 )1/nr1 + 1/n c=Vf001n1+1n in which[( Î )\dot] is the composite creep rate,V f is the fibre volume fraction,sgr 0,epsi 0 andn are the constants in the matrix creep law. The creep strength coefficient agr is found to be very weakly dependent onV f and practically independent ofn whenn is greater than about 6.