Glide of hollow fibers at the bridging stage of fracture in ceramic nanocomposites

A dislocation model is proposed which describes the glide of hollow fibers as a mechanism of energy relaxation at the bridging stage of fracture in ceramic nanocomposites. An elementary event of such glide is treated through generation and slip of a prismatic dislocation loop along the fiber-matrix interface. We calculate the critical shear stress necessary for barrier-less loop nucleation and investigate its dependence on the elastic and geometric properties of a fibrous nanocomposite.