T. Antretter et Fd. Fischer, CRITICAL SHAPES AND ARRANGEMENTS OF CARBIDES IN HIGH-SPEED TOOL STEEL, Materials science & engineering. A, Structural materials: properties, microstructure and processing, 237(1), 1997, pp. 6-11
High-speed tool steel can be regarded as a particle reinforced composi
te consisting of carbides embedded in a martensitic matrix. The intern
al stress distribution in such a material shows a significant dependen
cy on various parameters such as geometry, material and arrangement of
the inclusions as well as external loading conditions. Recent theoret
ical results confirm the experimental observations that material failu
re is initiated by cleavage fracture of the carbides rather than matri
x rupture. Given a constant volume-fraction of particles in the compos
ite material a Weibull approach is employed to estimate the fracture p
robability of the carbides. Various inclusion shapes are examined for
uniaxial loading conditions. The correlations between the probability
of fracture of the inclusion and the parameters defining the geometry
of the model will be demonstrated. Particular emphasis is put on the s
ignificance of the Weibull modulus m. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science S.A.