Mechanical and fracture toughness behavior of TiO ₂ -filled A384 metal alloy composites

Abstract In the present study, A384 alloy composites filled with titanium dioxide (TiO ₂ ) were fabricated by the stir casting technique by varying the filler percentages from 0 to 8 wt.-% at an interval of 2 wt.-%, respectively. This study focused on the physical, mechanical, and fracture behavior of unfilled and particulate-filled alloy composites. Void content (%) and hardness were found to increase from 2.22% to 3.02% and from 35.5 to 62.5 Hv, respectively, with the increased filler contents (0 to 8 wt.-%) for the micro-TiO ₂ -filled A384 metal alloy composite. However, mechanical properties such as tensile strength, tensile modulus, and flexural strength showed a decreasing trend for experimental and finite element simulated results. An X-ray diffraction technique was used to study the constituent material present in the composites. The stress intensity factors of the fabricated composites were studied both experimentally and by the finite element method technique. The highest value of stress intensity factor was observed to be 40 MPa.vm for 4 wt.-% micro-TiO ₂ -filled alloy composite at 9-mm crack length. A three-dimensional simulation of the fabricated composite using the unit cell model was developed in ANSYS using appropriate boundary conditions for tensile and flexural strength.