The effect of contiguity of the ceramic phase in co-continuous ceramic metal composites was investigated. To study the contiguity effect, the volume fraction of the ceramic phase in the composite was kept constant while contiguity varied. A new material processing technique was developed to achieve higher contiguities for a constant volume fraction. Uniaxial compression tests were performed to evaluate mechanical properties of the composites. A finite element-based micromechanical approach in conjunction with three-dimensional representative volume element models was employed to model the composite. Thermal residual stresses were estimated based on experimental results and were used in the finite element analyses. The FEA-predicted nonlinear stress-strain curves for copper/alumina and aluminum/alumina composites were compared with experimental data. Fairly good agreements were observed. It was found that, while the Young's modulus of a co-continuous composite is not sensitive to the level of contiguity of the ceramic phase, its nonlinear behavior is highly dependent of the contiguity.
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