Effects of heat-treatment and strain rate on the mechanical properties of SiC/Al composite wires—experimental and constitutive modeling

Abstract In order to investigate the effects of heat-treatment and strain rate on the mechanical properties of SiC/Al composite wires, tensile tests at different strain rates (0.001, 200, 700 and 1200 s −1 ) were carried out on two kinds of SiC/Al composite wires with different heat-treatment (composite wire 1: exposed at 400 °C for 40 min; composite wire 2: exposed at 600 °C for 40 min), and the stress–strain curves were obtained. The experimental results show that both of the two composite wires are rate dependent, their modulus, strength, and unstable strain all increase with increasing strain rate; the rate sensitivity is due to that of both the matrix and the fiber. The heat-treatment temperature also significantly affects the mechanical properties of the composite wire, since the strength of the composite wire 2 is about 42–46% lower than that of the composite wire 1. The mechanism of this effect is discussed. A bi-modal Weibull elastic–plastic coated-fiber-bundles model is established to describe the rate-dependent stress–strain relationship of SiC/Al composite wire, which fits the experimental results well.