CHARACTERIZATION OF SPATIAL-DISTRIBUTION OF REINFORCEMENT IN POWDER-METALLURGY ROUTE AL SICP METAL-MATRIX COMPOSITES .2. TECHNIQUES BASED ON LOCAL ENERGY-DISPERSIVE X-RAY-ANALYSIS/
Ic. Stone et P. Tsakiropoulos, CHARACTERIZATION OF SPATIAL-DISTRIBUTION OF REINFORCEMENT IN POWDER-METALLURGY ROUTE AL SICP METAL-MATRIX COMPOSITES .2. TECHNIQUES BASED ON LOCAL ENERGY-DISPERSIVE X-RAY-ANALYSIS/, Materials science and technology, 11(3), 1995, pp. 222-227
A technique for the characterisation of the spatial distribution of se
cond phases, based on measurement of the variation in local energy dis
persive X-ray analysis is outlined in the present paper. The technique
is applied to powder metallurgy route Al-4Cu/20SiC(p) (wt-%) metal ma
trix composites. Computer simulation of idealised microstructures show
s that it is possible to distinguish between random dispersions of dif
ferent volume fractions and between microstructures with cluster's of
different sizes and aspect ratios. Measurements from actual materials
indicate that the technique is sensitive to small differences in the s
patial distribution of the reinforcement and that it is a useful tool
for measuring the quality of the microstructures.