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The effect of the orientation of metal wires on the opening of a crack in a brittle-matrix composite has been studied. The force arising from the plastic bending of a wire which is weakly bonded to the matrix and which crosses the matrix crack at an angleθ to the crack face normal has been measured in model resin-wire composites and good agreement is found with a simple theory based on the calculation of the force needed to produce a plastic hinge in a cantilever beam. The force passes through a maximum at a small crack opening, of the order of one wire diameter, and decreases with further crack opening. The The largest force is obtained for a value ofθ of approximately 45°. For wires whose length approaches the critical length, the force and the total work of fracture arising from the bending of the wire are small compared to the values arising from the interfacial shear stress resisting pull-out; the …