Modeling of strength and ductility of metal alloy/graphene composites containing precipitates

Abstract

A model is suggested that describes plastic deformation of metal alloys reinforced with graphene. Within the model, the flow stress, yield and ultimate strength and the critical uniform elongation are calculated as functions of the structural parameters of the composites. It is demonstrated that a high strength of the composites requires that a significant part of grain boundary area should be occupied by graphene platelets, whereas grain size and platelet length exert small effects on the strength of the composites. It is shown that the addition of graphene can lead to a significant increase in strength at expense of a moderate decrease in ductility. Thus, the optimum graphene content should be high enough to provide a high proportion of grain boundary area occupied by graphene but still sufficiently small to avoid graphene agglomeration.