Fiber pull-out


Fiber pull-out is one of the failure mechanisms in fiber-reinforced composite materials. Other forms of failure include delamination, intralaminar matrix cracking, longitudinal matrix splitting, fiber/matrix debonding, and fiber fracture. The cause of fiber pull-out and delamination is weak bonding.
Work for debonding,
where
In ceramic matrix composite material this mechanism is not a failure mechanism, but essential for its fracture toughness, which is several factors above that of conventional ceramics.
The figure is an example of how a fracture surface of this material looks like. The strong fibers form bridges over the cracks before they fail at elongations around 0.7%, and thus prevent brittle rupture of the material at 0.05%, especially under thermal shock conditions. This allows using this type of ceramics for heat shields applied for the re-entry of space vehicles, for disk brakes and slide bearing components.