Paper number 553

RESIDUAL STRESSES IN HIGH VOLUME FRACTION METAL MATRIX COMPOSITES

J. Quinta da Fonseca1, R. F. Cochrane1, P.M. Mummery2 and M. R. Daymond3

1Department of Materials, University of Leeds Leeds LS2 9JT, United Kingdom
2National Physical Laboratory, Queens Road, Teddington, Middlesex, United Kingdom
3ISIS, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Didcot, United Kingdom

Summary The work presented is part of an ongoing research project which aims to characterise the deformation properties of high volume fraction metal matrix composite, Hivol. Hivol is a composite with 70% silicon carbide reinforcement in a cast aluminium alloy matrix. This article is an account of residual stress measurements carried out on Hivol samples with different mechanical and thermal histories. The stresses were measured using a neutron diffraction technique. Residual strains were found in as received samples, the low magnitude of which suggest stress relaxation through plastic yielding of the metallic matrix occurs readily. These were found to change when the composite was subject to load and thermal cycling.
Keywords metal matrix composites, residual, stresses, dimensional stability, neutron diffraction.

Theme : Metal Matrix Composites ; Characterisation and Modelling

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