A numerical micro-mechanical study of the influence of fiber–matrix interphase failure on carbon/epoxy material properties

A finite element micromechanical study of unidirectional carbon–epoxy system is performed in order to investigate the role of fiber–matrix debonding in the degradation of mechanical properties and in the onset of failure for this class of composite materials. The presence of interphase flaws, that can be induced during the manufacturing processes, into micro-scale FE models is obtained by means of an original damage injection technique developed...