Critical Length

Composite materials
Csar Ivn Garca Hernndez
Mircoles N2
Centro de Investigacin e Innovacin en Ingeniera Aeronutica
Facultad de Ingeniera Mecnica y Elctrica
Universidad Autnoma de Nuevo Len

I. INTRODUCTION
The study of composite materials today and in the last 20
years has caused a great curiosity in all researchers in the field
of materials; since they have discovered great features in this
vast area of materials. One of the most important reasons why
many have taken the time to develop the necessary technology
and obtain a composite material are properties that can have;
There is a big difference in the magnitudes of load and resistance
material of this type can support, so being able to bring these
properties to real applications of transport, construction and
among many other things, it could be a great support for the
technology in the future.

As we can see, the length critique of fiber could rely only on

the diameter that this recital, since the strength ultimate and
shear strength are values that remain constant in the material
being used, however, you can change and modify the diameter
of our fibers which could result in different results.
A. Different types of length
For the case when the critical length is equal to the length
of our fiber, achieve a behavior as the next within the
material structure:

II. CONTEXT
A. Fiber length
This document involves the issue of the length of a fiber in a
composite, as this is directly related to the properties added to
the matrix; besides this as the critical length could be a very
important factor in the behavior of our composite. The different
lengths can have a fiber and what are the capabilities that each
can provide are compared.
Fig. 1

III. DISCUSSION
It is necessary to know how the relationship between the
critical length and the length of a fiber to develop behavior that
occurs every situation occurs, and the comparison that will later
be exposed.
The mechanical characteristics of a fiber-reinforced
composite depend not only on the properties of the fiber, but also
on the degree to which an applied load is transmitted to the fibers
by the matrix phase. Important to the extent of this load
transmittance is the magnitude of the interfacial bond between
the fiber and matrix phases.
Some critical fiber length is necessary for effective
strengthening and stiffening of the composite material. This
critical length lc is dependent on the fiber diameter d and its
ultimate (or tensile) strength f and on the fibermatrix bond
strength c:
=

(1)

As we can see, if is applied a load along in the x-axis,

the behavior of the fiber will distribute the load all over
the fiber creating sore of bending point in the middle in
the fiber and this is the point most further from the origin
of the charge. In this case, is possible to achieve the
maximum just at the middle of the fiber, but in the rest
of the fiber will only possible to apply low loads to avoid
a failure in the structure.
The second case is when the length is bigger than the
critical length, this are the start of the best scenario for

the

behavior

of

all

of

the

fibers,

because:

possible to decrease the diameter is necessary to increase the the

length of the fiber. E.g.

Fig. 4
Fig. 2

A difference with the case analyzed before, the load seem

more distributed along the x-axis. In other words, for the
2 examples we can compared that increasing the length
in comparison with the critical length we can obtain a
most stable fiber that can support a maximum load in
almost all of the fiber. The ramp behavior that we have
in the two extremes of the fiber is because they are more
near to the load that is applied and is normal that could
be a principal points of failure.
The last point is the behavior completely opposite to the
one before. This case is when the critical length is bigger
than the length of the fiber:

As we can see, there is a load acting to the fiber and matrix, so

matrix are having a pattern in the deformation directly
proportional to the length of the fiber and thats because that
the fiber are adding properties to distribute the load, and if
could be possible to get inside all the fiber (in the fig. 4) we
can observe that the change of the actual matrix supporting all
of the load and then how this fiber absorbs all the stress.
All the behavior almost depends of how is the union between
of the matrix and the fiber, because a solid union will provide
better results than a poor bonding.
IV. EXTRA- INTENSIVE PROPERTIES
An intensive property doesn't change when you take away some
of the sample. Examples are temperature, color, hardness,
melting point, boiling point, pressure, molecular weight, and
density. Because intensive properties are sometimes
characteristic of a particular material, they can be helpful as
clues in identifying unknown substances. This are the
properties that doesnt add properties when is adding to another
substance
CONCLUSION

Fig. 3

This property are not desirable when is construing a

composite material, because as we can see at the
graph, none of the points on the fiber will reach the
maximum load that could support the fiber and
before that this load reach the maximum the fiber
will already be broken or can fail the tests.
B. Assumptions
Getting explain the behavior of the main 3 different types of
the length in the fiber we can assume different points to know
why is the cause of this properties related with the length.
As the diameter act like the principal factor of the
determination of the critical length and comparing that the fiber
which have a bigger length that the critical, we can tell that the
better option are a fiber with very high length, called continuous
fiber, but getting in mind the factor of the diameter, if is not

We can conclude with this work the importance of the

components or the factor will act in the efficiency of our
composite materials, and one is the length because as we can
remark in the paper, the length plays an important role in the
definition of the properties and how is the better way to choice
a conditions of the fibers. There are others factor that act in the
behavior of the composite, one is the mentioned before that are
the type of the union and the other are the distribution or
alienation of the fibers, because in study of other papers, the
conclusion of that investigations refers that are very different
results of efficiency between the different types of alienation
(e.g. aligned or random aligned)
REFERENCES
[1]
[2]

William D. Callister, Jr, Materials Science- An introduction John Wiley

& Sons, Inc, pp. 584586, 2007. (references)
F.C. Campbell, A Treat,Strutural Composite materials, ASM
international, 2010