Quantification and Classification of Continuous Ceramic Fiber Reinforced Ceramic Matrix Composites Microstructures

Advance ceramic reinforced ceramic matrix composites (CMCs) materials exhibit hierarchical internal structure with rich details at multiple length scales of interest. These details of the materials’ internal structure are referred to as the microstructure which dictates the overall performance of the material. In this work, we show that a rigorous statistical quantification of the material internal structure (i.e. microstructure) is possible for CMCs. In particular, a 2-point spatial correlation function is shown to capture the spatial heterogeneity for the two different class of microstructures generated using Uniform and Gaussian distribution. Additionally, it is demonstrated how these stochastic representations of the distributed filaments can be imported into a finite element framework to simulated transverse cracking strength. The damage in these simulations in modeled using a novel Regularized eXtended Finite Element Method (Rx-FEM) that predicts damage initiation and propagation without a priori defining where that damage occurs.