Damage and failure analysis of a SiCf/SiC ceramic matrix composite using digital image correlation and acoustic emission

Abstract The analysis of failure behaviors of continuous fiber-reinforced ceramic matrix composites (CMCs) requires the characterization of the damage evolution process. In service environments, CMCs exhibit complex damage mechanisms and failure modes, which are affected by constituent materials, meso architecture, inherent defects, and loading conditions. In this paper, the in-plane tensile mechanical behavior of a plain woven SiCf/SiC CMC was investigated, and damage evolution and failure process were studied in detail by digital image correlation (DIC) and acoustic emission (AE) methods. The results show that: the initiation of macro-matrix cracks have obvious local characteristic, and the propagation paths are periodically distributed on the material surface; different damage modes (matrix cracking and fiber fracture) would affect the AE energy signal and can be observed in real-time; the significant increase of AE accumulated energy indicates that serious damage occurs inside the material, and the macroscopic mechanical behavior exhibits nonlinear characteristic, which corresponds to the proportional limit stress (PLS) of the material.