Simulation of anisotropic load transfer and stress distribution in sicp/Al composites subjected to tensile loading

The deformation behaviors of 17 vol% SiCp/2009Al composite plates were studied by using microscale finite element (FE) models. The effects of aspect ratio (AR) of SiC particles were investigated. Tensile results obtained from experiments and simulations matched well. The load transfer and stress distribution between SiC particles and metal matrix were studied by calculating the mean stress in each phase. We found that, in the longitudinal direction, increasing the AR of SiC particles increased the mean stress in the SIC particles and decreased that in the metal matrix. Evolution of the stress concentration factor for each phase was obtained from simulation and a load-rebalancing phenomenon was observed. Stress concentration factor of SiC went down around the middle of the elastic stage (true strain value equals to 0.0025) and reversed at the beginning of the plastic stage of tension.