Near-surface instability of composites weakly reinforced with short fibers.

The paper is concerned with loss of stability near the free flat surface of a weakly short-fiber-reinforced composite material under compression along the fibers. Emphasis is on the effect of the mechanical and geometrical parameters of the composite and the distance between fibers and to the free surface on the critical strains. The piecewise-homogeneous medium model and the rigorous three-dimensional linearized theory of stability of deformable bodies are used [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]