Effect of interface strength on metal matrix composites properties

In applications of modern engineering materials, it is often necessary to combine two or more different materials/phases to make a composite, creating inevitably interfaces that must sustain mechanical loads and environmental attacks without failure. The interfaces play an important and sometimes compelling role in determining the performance of the composite. The range of phenomena intrinsic to composite interfaces and their failure have warranted a great deal of experimental and theoretical investigations in the past few decades. Understanding the properties of interfaces requires knowledge of the structure, the physics, and chemistry of the interface. Control of interface failure is one of the most efficient approaches to optimize the mechanical properties of composites. The properties of an interface are amenable to modifications through many routes, such as the application of coatings to or surface treatment of the reinforcements. A monograph devoted solely to composites interface phenomena, summarizing recent advances in the characterization, evaluation, measurement, surface modification, and optimization of interface properties and interface-related fracture behaviors of composites in terms of both experiments and theories has been published by the authors of this chapter.