Abstract
In particle or short-fiber reinforced composites, cracking or debonding of the reinforcements cause a significant damage mode because the damaged reinforcements lose load carrying capacity. The average stress in the inhomogeneity represents its load carrying capacity, and the difference between the average stresses of the intact and broken inhomogeneities indicates the loss of load carrying capacity due to cracking damage. The composite in damage process contains intact and broken reinforcements in a matrix. An incremental constitutive relation of discontinuously-reinforced composites including the progressive cracking damage of the reinforcements have been developed based on the Eshelby's equivalent inclusion method and Mori-Tanaka's mean field concept. Influence of the cracking damage on the stress-strain response of the composites is demonstrated.