A method to compute effective elastic moduli in fiber-reinforced composite having circular-arc shaped interfacial cracks is proposed and the effective elastic moduli are computed. The potential energy change due to the circular-arc shaped cracks in unidirectionally fiber-reinforced composites is first expressed in terms of the effective elastic moduli in the composite material having cracks and the effective elastic moduli in the same composite material without cracks. The potential energy change is computed by using L integral, which can be obtained easily from the well-known solutions. In evaluating the L integral, it is assumed that a single fiber having circular-arc shaped crack is embedded in a matrix of the effective elastic moduli to be sought, which is guided by the self-consistent method.
For the particular case of the circular-arc shaped cracks in homogeneous medium, it is shown that the result in this study is identical to the result of Laws and Brockenbrough, when the latter result is properly interpreted. The validity ofthis method is also discussed.
