Bending failure assessment of C/C composite by competing risk theory

Ishihara, Masahiro ; Kojima, Takao; Hoshiya, Taiji

Bending failure of two-dimensional C/C composite was studied by both experimental and analytical approaches. In the experiment, a bending test and observation of failure surfaces were performed. From the surface observation, three kinds of fundamental fracture modes were observed; these were tensile, compressive and shear fracture modes. In the analysis, the risk-based statistical fracture theory, so-called the competing risk theory was applied to clarify the bending failure taking account of the competition of these fracture modes. Parameters used in the theory on these fundamental fracture modes were determined by additional experiments, and the theory was applied to the bending failure prediction. As a result of this study, it is concluded that the bending failure was well predicted by the theory, and that the theory would be possible to predict the strength under stress gradient condition. Furthermore, a new strength prediction method combined with FEM code, which is applicable to arbitrary shaped structures with stress gradient, was proposed in this paper.