In the present work, the building panel of glass fiber reinforced polyvinylidene chloride composite was prepared and the tensile fracture surfaces of the composites were investigated by the box-counting method of multifractal theory. It suggested that the tensile fracture surface of polyvinylidene chloride/glass fiber (PVDC/GF) composite exhibits multifractal features and the tensile fracture surface morphology of the composite have a strong dependence on the mechanical properties. The results showed that the variation of glass fiber content would lead to the change of mechanical properties, which were responsible for the tensile fracture morphology of PVDC/GF composite. Consequently, the gray value distribution characterizing the surface morphology on the tensile fracture surface would become more non-uniform or less due to this change. The multifractal spectrum could correspondingly mirror this variation according to multifractal methodology. It indicated that the width in multifractal spectrum is sensitive to the morphology of the tensile fractured surface. It is concluded that the multifractal spectrum is the result of the change in mechanical properties of the composites. Additionally, it also suggested that the tensile fracture of the composite is the result of the competition between ductile fracture and brittle fracture by comparing the multifractal spectra and the multifractal spectra would correspondingly change due to this competition. The more the percentage of ductile fracture is, the more rough the fracture surface, the larger the width in the multifractal spectrum. Therefore, it is thought that the multifractal spectrum could feature the rough morphology of the tensile fractured surface and the mechanical properties quantitatively. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.