Mechanical behavior of C/SiC T-section under pulling load

For the C/SiC T-section structures, fabrication defects such as pores and local delaminations can be easily formed in the intersection zone which significantly affect the load bearing capacity. In this work, the mechanical behavior of C/SiC T-section under pulling load was investigated, and especially the delamination behavior was studied by introducing the cohesive zone model into the finite element modeling. It was found that for C/SiC T-section under pulling load, the maximum critical delamination load was about 1075 N in the present work, and the interface delamination was the main failure mode. It was verified that the effective interfacial strength influenced the critical delamination load, and the strain energy release affected the delamination behavior of the T-section specimen. The failure mechanisms of C/SiC T-section under pulling load depend on the interface bonding states. When the interface is well bonded, the failure mechanisms mainly include matrix stripping, matrix fracture and fiber breakage. Otherwise, only the matrix stripping can be found at the interface of the C/SiC T-section specimen.