Thermal residual stresses in co-continuous composites

Abstract The thermal residual stresses in two types of co-continuous composites copper/aluminum oxide (Cu/Al2O3) and aluminum/aluminum oxide (Al/Al2O3) were measured by neutron diffraction experiments. These stresses were generated during the cooling after high processing temperature. The coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) mismatch of metal and ceramic phases led to significant amount of thermal stresses. In both the composites, the metallic phase was found to be under tension and aluminum-oxide phase under compression. Even though the magnitude of compressive stress in both the composites was similar; the two metal-phases had very different magnitude of tensile stresses. The difference in volume fraction, CTE, elastic stiffness and plastic flow properties led to this difference. The hydrostatic stresses were found to be predominant in both the phases. Finite element simulations were used to predict the stress distributions inside each phase and at the interfaces. A representative unit cell approach was considered to represent the composite. Concept of effective ΔT was utilized to simulate the thermal stress distribution inside the two phases in the unit cell. This model utilized the neutron diffraction measurements to predict the stress distribution inside each phase and at the interface. The simulations showed that significant amount of tensile stresses develop at the metal–ceramic interfaces.