Software for Predicting Life of Metal-Matrix Composites

LIPS (LIFE PREDICTION SOFTWARE) is a computer program for predicting the life of an object that is made of a unidirectional-fiber/metal-matrix composite (MMC) material and that is subjected to mechanical loading along the fiber direction. The program is derived from a theory formulated to be consistent with the experimental observation that progressive fiber fracture (more precisely, successive fractures of different fibers) is a dominant damage mechanism that leads to failure in MMCs. This theory is fundamentally different from other theories in which the effects of broken fibers are represented by artificially reducing the moduli of the fibers. In the present theory, progressive fiber fracture is addressed via a fiber-fracture criterion based on a statistical distribution of fiber strength.