Damage Study in Notched Particulate Composite Specimens Under Non-Uniform Strain Loading

This paper studied crack initiation in a hard particle reinforced composite with a soft rubber-like matrix material using a numerical technique. The numerical specimen considered had a semi-circular notch with a linearly varying length. The initial crack size occurring at the notch tip was modeled and predicted using a micro/macro-approach along with a damage model. A criterion to predict the initial crack size was proposed based on the size of a localized unstable material zone. Different notch sizes were compared to their initial crack sizes.