By measuring the electrical resistance of a continuous unidirectional carbon fiber epoxy-matrix composite along the fiber direction during loading in this direction, fiber breakage was progressively monitored in real time. Fiber breakage occurred in spurts involving 1000 fibers or more. It started at about half of the failure strain during static tensile loading and at about half of the fatigue life during tension-tension fatigue testing. Immediately before static failure, 35
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