MICROMECHANICAL SOLIDIFICATION HEAT-TRANSFER AND INITIAL STRAIN ESTIMATION IN THE FABRICATION PROCESS OF PARTICLES-REINFORCED ALUMINUM COMPOSITES

Micromechanical analysis models for two cases of solidification phenom ena are proposed in order to determine the heat exchange between the p articles and the base metals. This study is two-dimensional analysis o f both spherical particles and cylindrical particles in an hexagonal c lose-packed array. In an attempt to understand the experimentally obse rved solidification microstructure in metal-matrix composites, the inf luence of SiCp on the solidification of aluminum alloy has been studie d numerically. This study simplified the actual process as a two-dimen sional heat-transfer model to analyze the solidification phenomenon of particle distributed MMCs and predicted the cooling rate, the variati ons of the solidification fronts and the thermal strain with the calcu lating temperature distribution. The solidification velocity was compa red with the theoretical predictions of settling due to the density di fference between the particles and the matrix. (C) 1997 Elsevier Scien ce S.A.