Abstract
In the study of hybrid fibre cement composites containing continuous polypropylene fibres and glass fibres, it is important to know the fracture behaviour of the glass fibre strand in order to minimise the discrepancies between experiment and theory. A new technique of light transmission through the glass fibres has been developed in order to obtain independent information about the failure of individual glass filaments within a strand. The technique gave quantitative results showing that in the hybrid composite, about 80% of the glass filaments were broken somewhere in the strands before the maximum stress in the composite was reached. This was in contrast to the composite reinforced with glass fibres alone where only about 30% of the filaments were fractured before the ultimate stress. The fractures of the glass filaments in the hybrid composite were more evenly distributed than in the singly reinforced composite which enabled greater strains to be achieved in the hybrid composite at the maximum stress. (C) 1998 Kluwer Academic Publishers.