Computational Micromechanics of Particle- reinforced Composites: Effect of Complex Three- dimensional Microstructures

Abstract—It is of interest to incorporate quantitative characterization of actual three-dimensional microstructures in micromechanical analysis of composites due to the dominant influence of microstructural features on the material behavior. In this paper, a methodology has been developed to perform finite element-based simulations on complex three-dimensional microstructures, through its application to the aluminum matrix composites reinforced with randomly distributed SiC particles of highly variable and irregular geometries. The effect of the complex microstructures on the micromechanics of the composites is investigated in terms of their elasto-plastic deformation and damage initiation. For comparison, the conventional simulations on the simplified microstructures, i.e., randomly distributed spheroids, are also carried out. The difference is significant between the simulation results based on the complex microstructures and on the simplified ones, respectively. Confirmed by available experimental data, it is believed that the computational micromechanics capturing the complex features of realistic microstructure provides a more accurate and comprehensive picture for predicting and understanding the material behavior of particle-reinforced composites. The present methodology is also efficient to represent the virtual complex microstructures and hence promising for the design and application of composites. Index Terms—microstructure, micromechanics, simulation, finite element method, particle-reinforced composites I