Evaluation of damage accumulation behavior and strength anisotropy of NITE SiC/SiC composites by acoustic emission, digital image correlation and electrical resistivity monitoring

Nozawa, Takashi; Ozawa, Kazumi; Asakura, Yuki*; Koyama, Akira*; Tanigawa, Hiroyasu

SiC/SiC composite is a promising candidate material of fusion DEMO reactor. This paper aims to identify its damage tolerance and strength anisotropy by various characterization techniques such as acoustic emission (AE) monitoring, electrical resistivity (ER) measurement, and digital image correlation (DIC). The AE results identified that damage accumulation initiated prior to the proportional limit stress (PLS) by both tensile and compressive loadings for 2D composites. The preliminary AE waveform analysis implied that this AE detect strength corresponds to initiation of micro-cracking but the stress-strain curve shows further linearity due to the strong interfacial friction. Then fiber sliding occurred near the PLS, followed by the non-linearlity of the curve. The preliminary tensile test results using a notched specimen also suggest notch insensitivity of the composites in any loading directions. The detailed failure mechanism will eventually be discussed with ER and DIC results.