DENSIFICATION BY PLASTIC-DEFORMATION AROUND SPHERICAL INCLUSIONS

The densification of a metal powder compact containing hard spherical inclusions is modeled. The inclusions are rigid and isolated, while th e surrounding matrix material deforms according to a homogeneous non-h ardening compressible plasticity description. Solutions are obtained f or the limiting cases of small and large inclusion volume fractions an d approximate solutions are derived for intermediate inclusion concent rations. These analytic results are shown to be in good agreement with complete finite difference solutions. The presence of inclusions incr eases the work required to densify the matrix by less than 15%, howeve r the density is shown to asymptotically approach a non-uniform distri bution.