A computational and experimental study on the effective properties of Al2O3-Ni composites

It has been demonstrated that effective medium approximation and mean field homogenization technique is a useful computational tool to predict the effective thermal and structural properties of alumina-nickel (Al2O3-Ni) composites. Nickel particle size and volume fraction, thermal interface resistance and porosity are found significant factors that affect thermal conductivity, elastoplastic behavior, elastic modulus and thermal expansion coefficient of Al2O3-Ni composite. To complement the computational design, Al2O3-Ni composite samples with designed range of volume fractions and nickel particle size are developed using spark plasma sintering process and properties are measured for model verification.