Incorporating Aspect Ratio in a New Modeling Approach for Strengthening of MMCs and its Extension from Micro to Nano Scale

The strengthening behavior of particle reinforced metal–matrix composites is primarily attributed to the dislocation strengthening effect and the load transfer effect. To account for these two effects in a unified way, a new multi-scale approach is developed in this paper incorporating the aspect ratio effect into the geometrically necessary dislocation strengthening relationships. By making use of this multi-scale approach, the deformation behavior of metal–matrix composites (MMCs) and metal–matrix nanocomposites (MMNCs) as a function of size, volume fraction, aspect ratio, etc. of the particles has been investigated. Comparison with the previously proposed models and the available experimental results reported in the literature for both MMCs and MMNCs systems demonstrates the superiority of the proposed model.