Aspects of fracture toughness modelling of particle filled polymer composites

Polymer composites filled with hard inorganic particles of nano- to micro-scaled sizes show a very complex variation of fracture toughness with increasing particle fraction. Various failure mechanisms such as particle debonding, matrix yielding and subsequent brittle or ductile matrix fracture develop during crack propagation. In this work, these failure mechanisms within a dissipation zone are considered for the calculation of composite...