Constitutive relation of discontinuous reinforced metal-matrix composites

A micromechanical model is developed to simulate the mechanical behaviors of discontinuous reinforced composites. The analysis for a representative unit cell is based on the assumption of a periodic array of aligned reinforcements. The minimum energy principle is used to determine the unknown coefficients of the displacement field of the unit cell. The constitutive behavior of composites is studied to obtain the relationship between the main variables of matrix and reinforcements. It is concluded that the flow strength of composites is strongly influenced by volume fraction, aspect ratio of reinforcement, and the strain hardening exponent of matrix. An analytical constitutive relation of composites is obtained. The predicted results are in agreement with the existing experimental and numerical results. The project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (19704100) and National Science Foundation of Chinese Academy of Sciences (KJ951-1-20)