Microstructural factors controlling the strength and ductility of particle-reinforced metal-matrix composites

A micromechanical model is developed to simulate the mechanical response in tension of particle-reinforced metal-matrix composites. The microstructure of the composite is represented as a three-dimensional array of hexagonal prisms with one reinforcement at the centre of each prism. The shape, volume fraction and state (either intact or broken) of the reinforcement is independent for each cell, so the interaction among all these factors could be studied. The tensile response of the composite is determined from the behaviour of the intact and damaged cells, the fraction of damaged cells being calculated on the assumption that the reinforcement strength follows the Weibull statistics. The model is used to determine the microstructural factors which provide optimum behaviour from the point of view of the tensile strength and ductility. The analyses included the effect of the matrix and reinforcement properties, the reinforcement volume fraction, the interaction between reinforcements of different shape and the heterogeneous distribution of the reinforcements within the composite. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.