Post-microbuckling of fibre bridging kink bands under compression

Surface originated kink bands consist of an important failure mode for fibre-reinforced composites under compression. The mechanical behavior of the fibre bridging kink bands is explored herein in the context of the post-microbuckling theory. Expressions of bridging force are obtained for the entire postbuckling process of the fibres exhibiting weak or strong hardening. The postbuckling formulation of the fibres is applied to yield the toughness increment due to the advancing kink bands, and consequently leads to a quantitative prediction on the overall compressive stress strain curves of the fibre-reinforced composites. The project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China