The design and fabrication of an alumina reinforced aluminum composite material

A low cost bonding technique of hot-cold rolling was used to fabricate an a luminum matrix composite dispersed with three different volume fractions of alumina platelets. It was found that the increase in both the elastic modu lus and the tensile strength of the composite was significant as compared w ith that of the aluminum matrix. A numerical investigation into the mechani sm of reinforcement was made in order to optimize the material design. Fini te element analysis was carried out for a representative unit cell of the c omposite using the elastic-plastic theory. The effects of reinforcement vol ume fraction and other geometric parameters of the reinforcement on the loc al stress fields, the elastic modulus and the elastic-plastic properties of the composite were evaluated. The calculated elastic modulus agrees very w ell with the experimental results. The numerical calculations also provide many other valuable insights into the design of the composite material. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.