Thermal residual stresses in SiC particle reinforced aluminium composites: a study by the Taylor-based nonlocal theory of plasticity

Abstract

Strain gradient theories have been considered to be an effective means for capturing the size effects on ceramic particle-reinforced metal-matrix composites (MMCp), but the results predicted by them are significantly lower than the corresponding experimental data. One reason might be, that the thermal residual stresses caused by thermal contraction mismatch between the metal matrix and the ceramic particle were neglected in the numerical models. By incorporating the Taylor-based nonlocal theory (TNT) of plasticity, the finite element method (FEM) is applied in the present research, to investigate the effect of thermal residual stresses on the yield stress and average axial stresses of the aluminium matrix reinforced by silicon carbide particles (SiCp/Al). The elements of the matrix have been implemented in the ABAQUS finite element code through its USER-ELEMENT (UEL) interface for TNT plasticity. Some comparisons with the associated literature demonstrate that the numerical model with the thermal residual stresses is more in agreement with the experimental results.