Study on coexistence of brittle and ductile fractures in nano reinforcement composites under different loading conditions

Experimental study on high volume fraction of metallic matrix nano composites (MMNCs) was conducted, including uniaxial tension, uniaxial compression, and three-point bending. The example materials were two magnesium matrix composites reinforced with 10 and 15% vol. SiC particles (50 nm size). Brittle fracture mode was exhibited under uniaxial tension and three-point bending, while shear dominated ductile fracture mode (up to 12% fracture strain) was observed under uniaxial compression. The original Modified Mohr–Coulomb (MMC) fracture model (Bai and Wierzbicki in Int J Fract 161:1–20, 2010; in a mixed space of stress invariants and equivalent strain) was transferred into a stress based MMC (sMMC) model. This model was demonstrated to be capable of predicting the coexistence of brittle and ductile fracture modes under different loading conditions for MMNCs. A material post-failure softening model was postulated along the damage accumulation to capture the above two different failure modes. This model was implemented to the Abaqus/Explicit as a material subroutine. Numerical simulations using finite element method well duplicated the material strength, fracture initiation sites and crack propagation modes of the Mg/SiC nano composites with a good accuracy. The proposed model has a good potential to predict fracture for a wide range of material with strength asymmetry and coexistence of brittle and ductile fractures modes.