FEM study of the second stage creep behavior of Al6061/SiC metal matrix composite

Prediction of the creep behavior of metal matrix whiskers reinforced composites is the subject of many analytical and experimental research works. However, application of the FEM modeling to this area has not been so successful. The present research work highlights the shortcomings of the previous FEM studies and combines the analytical findings with the power of FEM modeling. More specifically, the fiber/matrix debonding parameter delta is incorporated into the modeling. In contrary to the analytical results, it is shown that the value of xi could only change in the range of zero to 0.5. The results indicate that the exponential creep law along with the modified xi-sigma relationship, and the newly proposed range for xi could provide very close results to the available experimental creep data. To get satisfactory results, it is important to consider the corresponding value of xi to the applied load. The discrepancy between the FEM and the experimental results has shown to be much less than that of the analytical approach. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.