Modeling the inelastic interphase in unidirectional composites (Q1911097)

From a microscopic point of view, studying the influence of the interface on the mechanical behavior of a composite material leads to a contact problem between the reinforcement and the matrix. In our study, we assume that there exists a contact surface between the two elastic bodies and that this surface is the limit of a thin layer of a ``plastic'' material. The resulting problem is a quadratic programming (QP) problem which can be handled by a variety of QP methods, among them Wolfe's algorithm. By applying the latter, we show that the obtained solution satisfies, within the elastic finite element approximation, all the conditions of the original problem. The method is applied to the case of an unidirectional composite under transverse tensile test. Cracking of such a material is then studied, and the results are compared with experimental data.