Shear waves in fiber-reinforced composites with interfacial cracks (Q1282851)

An ensemble-average statistical method is used to calculate the overall effective mechanical properties of fiber-reinforced composites with fiber-matrix interfacial cracks which occur during the manufacturing process or are from inherent material defects. The problem starts with the establishment of the Helmholtz equation and boundary conditions, followed by a full-scale solution of the multiple scattering equations. Then, by considering the low frequency limit and the statistics of randomly spatial distribution of the fibers, a manageable homogeneous linear matrix equation is obtained, and the macroscopic mechanical properties of the composite system are derived. The calculated average mechanical properties include the overall effective shear modulus, the average shear wave phase speed, and the average specific damping capacity.