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This study investigated the effect of the fusion-bonded dots of veil interleaves on the crack propagation path of the interlaminar fracture of continuous carbon fiber reinforced epoxy resin. Two thin fiber layers (i.e., nylon veil (NV) with fusion-bonded dots and Kevlar veil (KV) physically stacked by fibers) were used to toughen composites as interleaves. Result shows that the existence of fusion-bonded dots strongly influenced the crack propagation and changed the interlaminar fracture mechanism. The Mode I fracture path of the nylon veil interleaved composite (NVIC) could propagate in the plane where the dots were located, whereas the path of the Kevlar veil interleaved composite (KVIC) randomly deflected inside the interlayer without the pre-cracking of the dots. The improvement of Mode I toughness was mainly based on fiber bridging and the resulting fiber breakage and pull-out. Fiber breakage was often observed for NVIC, whereas fiber pull-out was the main mechanism for KVIC. For the Mode II fracture path, the fusion-bonded NV dots guided the fracture path largely deflected inside the interlayer, causing the breakage of tough nylon fibers. The fracture path of the physically stacked KVIC occurred at one carbon ply/interlayer interface and only slightly deflected at fiber overlapped regions. Moreover, the fiber pull-out was often observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the linear Mohr–Coulomb criterion is frequently applied to predict the failure of brittle materials such as cast iron, it can be used for ductile metals too. However, the criterion has some significant deficiencies which limit its predictive ability. In the present study, the underlying failure hypotheses of the linear Mohr–Coulomb criterion were thoroughly discussed. Based on Mohr's physically meaningful concept of fracture plane, a macroscopic strength criterion was developed to explain the failure mechanism of isotropic metals. The failure function was expressed as a polynomial expansion in terms of the stresses acting on the fracture plane, and the quadratic approximation was employed to describe the non-linear behavior of the failure envelope. With an in-depth understanding of Mohr's fracture plane concept, the failure angle was regarded as a generalized strength parameter in addition to the failure stress (i.e., the conventional basic strength). The undetermined coefficients of the non-linear failure function were calibrated by the strength parameters obtained from the common uniaxial tension and compression tests. Theoretical and experimental assessment for different types of isotropic metals validated the effectiveness of the proposed criterion in predicting material failure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]