• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.273-279
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• 2011

The yield strength of particle-reinforced composites increases as the size of the particle decreases. This kind of length scale has been mainly attributed to the geometrically necessary dislocation punched around the particle as a result of the mismatch of the thermal expansion coefficients of the particle and the matrix when the composites are cooled down after consolidation. In this study, two dislocation-punching theories that can be used in continuum structural modeling are assessed numerically. The two theories, presented by Shibata et al. and Dunand and Mortensen, calculate the size of the dislocationpunched zone. The composite yield strengths predicted by finite element analysis were qualitatively compared with experimental results. When the size of the particle is less than $2{\mu}m$, the patterns of the composite strength are quite different. The results obtained by Shibata et al. are in qualitatively better agreement with the experimental results.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.35 no.7
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• pp.745-751
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• 2011

This study proposes finite element modeling of dislocation punching at cooling after consolidation in order to calculate the strength of particle-reinforced aluminum composites. The Taylor dislocation model combined with strain gradient plasticity around the reinforced particle is adopted to take into account the size-dependency of different volume fractions of the particle. The strain gradients were obtained from the equivalent plastic strain calculated during the cooling of the spherical unit cell, when the dislocation punching due to CTE (Coefficient of Thermal Expansion) mismatch is activated. The enhanced yield stress was observed by including the strain gradients, in an average sense, over the punched zone. The tensile strength of the SiCp/Al 356-T6 composite was predicted through the finite element analysis of an axisymmetric unit cell for various sizes and volume fractions of the particle. The predicted strengths were found to be in good agreement with the experimental data. Further, the particle-size dependency was clearly established.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.187-194
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• 2012

The strength of particle-reinforced metal matrix composites is, in general, known to be increased by the geometrically necessary dislocations punched around a particle that form during cooling after consolidation because of coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) mismatch between the particle and the matrix. An additional strength increase may also be observed, since another type of geometrically necessary dislocation can be formed during extensive deformation as a result of the strain gradient plasticity due to the elastic-plastic mismatch between the particle and the matrix. In this paper, the magnitudes of these two types of dislocations are calculated based on the dislocation plasticity. The dislocations are then converted to the respective strengths and allocated hierarchically to the matrix around the particle in the axisymmetric finite-element unit cell model. The proposed method is shown to be very effective by performing finite-element strength analysis of $SiC_p$/Al2124-T4 composites that included ductile failure in the matrix and particlematrix decohesion. The predicted results for different particle sizes and volume fractions show that the length scale effect of the particle size obviously affects the strength and failure behavior of the particle-reinforced metal matrix composites.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.275-282
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• 2014

Particle-reinforced metal matrix composites exhibit a strengthening effect due to the particle size-dependent length scale that arises from the strain gradient, and thus from the geometrically necessary dislocations between the particles and matrix that result from their CTE(Coefficient of Thermal Expansion) and elastic-plastic mismatches. In this study, the influence of the size-dependent length scale on the particle-matrix interface failure and ductile failure in the matrix was examined using finite-element punch zone modeling whereby an augmented strength was assigned around the particle. The failure behavior was observed by a parametric study, while varying the interface failure properties such as the interface strength and debonding energy with different particle sizes and volume fractions. It is shown that the two failure modes (interface failure and ductile failure in the matrix) interact with each other and are closely related to the particle size-dependent length scale; in other words, the composite with the smaller particles, which is surrounded by a denser dislocation than that with the larger particles, retards the initiation and growth of the interface and matrix failures, and also leads to a smaller amount of decrease in the flow stress during failure.