In this paper, the tensile damage and fracture behavior of carbon fiber reinforced silicon carbide (C/SiC) minicomposites with single- and multiple-layer interphases are investigated. The effect of the interphase on the tensile damage and fracture behavior of C/SiC minicomposites is analyzed. The evolution of matrix cracking under the tensile load of the C/SiC minicomposite with a notch is observed using the digital image correlation (DIC) method. The damage evolution process of the C/SiC minicomposite can be divided into four main stages, namely, (1) an elastic response coupled with partial re-opening of thermal microcracking; (2) multiple matrix microcracking perpendicular to the applied loading; (3) crack opening and related fiber/matrix, bundle/matrix, and inter-bundle debonding; and (4) progressive transfer of the load to the fibers and gradual fiber failure until composite failure/fracture. On the fracture surface, a large number of fibers pulling out of the samples with both single-layer and multi-layer interphases can be clearly observed.
Keywords: C/SiC; ceramic matrix composites (CMCs); fiber pullout; interface debonding; matrix cracking; minicomposite.