An Insight into the Mechanical Properties of Unidirectional C/C Composites Considering the Effect of Pore Microstructures via Numerical Calculation

Pores are common defects generated during fabrication, which restrict the application of carbon/carbon (C/C) composites. To quantitatively understand the effects of pores on mechanical strength, this paper proposes a representative volume element model of unidirectional (UD) C/C composites based on the finite element method. The Hashin criterion and exponential degraded rule are used as the failure initiation and evolution of pyrolytic carbon matrices, respectively. Interfacial zones are characterized using the cohesive constitutive. At the same time, periodic boundary conditions are employed to study transverse tensile, compressive, and shear deformations of UD C/C composites. Predicted results are compared with the experimental results, which shows that the proposed model can effectively simulate the transverse mechanical behaviors of UD C/C composites. Based on this model, the effects of microstructural parameters including porosity, pore locations, the distance between two pores, pore clustering, and pore shapes on the mechanical strength are investigated. The results show that porosity markedly reduces the strength as porosity increases. When the porosity increases from 4.59% to 12.5%, the transverse tensile, compressive, and shear strengths decrease by 35.91%, 37.52%, and 30.76%, respectively. Pore locations, the distance between two pores, and pore clustering have little effect on the shear strength of UD C/C composites. For pore shapes, irregular pores more easily lead to stress concentration and matrix failure, which greatly depresses the bearing capacity of UD C/C composites.