Microstructural Characterization and Modeling of Discontinuously- Reinforced Aluminum Composites (Postprint)

摘要

Models for predicting the constitutive behavior of spatially- heterogeneous microstructures such as discontinuously-reinforced aluminum (DRA) and other metallic matrix composites based on unit cell approaches generally do not incorporate higher-order microstructural features such as degree of homogeneity and spatial anisotropy of the reinforcement phase. Moreover, more complex numerical models rarely encompass the volumes of material necessary to ensure statistical relevance. The present contribution offers an alternative approach for quantifying and then incorporating the microstructural homogeneity of these materials within an elastic-plastic finite element code. An attempt is made to model both the micromechanical length scale associated with the individual reinforcement particles and the microstructural length scale associated with their spatial distribution, at a greatly-reduced computational expense, by using a volume-averaged, discretized approach.