Fiber pull-out is one of the failure mechanisms in fiber-reinforced composite materials.
[1] Other forms of failure include delamination, intralaminar matrix cracking, longitudinal matrix splitting, fiber/matrix debonding, and fiber fracture.
[3] where In ceramic matrix composite material this mechanism is not a failure mechanism, but essential for its fracture toughness,[4] which is several factors above that of conventional ceramics.
The strong fibers form bridges over the cracks before they fail at elongations around 0.7%, and thus prevent brittle rupture of the material at 0.05%, especially under thermal shock conditions.
[5][page needed] This allows using this type of ceramics for heat shields applied for the re-entry of space vehicles, for disk brakes and slide bearing components.