Plastic relaxation of thermoelastic stress in aluminum/ceramic composites

The dislocation generation due to a thermoelastic stress in 2024 Al/ceramic (SiC or TiC) composites was studied using transmission electron microscopy Composites containing different ceramic particulates, ceramic volume fraction, and particle size were investigated. Dislocation density profiles were measured as a function of the distance from an Al/ceramic interface and compared with those calculated from an elastoplasticity model which accounts for the volume fraction of the ceramic particles. The intensity of dislocation generation showed a strong particle size dependence: as the ceramic particle size became of the order of a micron, the intensity of dislocation generation increased significantly. With an increase in the volume fraction of the ceramic particles, the dislocation density also increased, and the dislocation structure became a more tangled arrangement. If heat dissipation was taken into account as part of the plastic work, the predicted dislocation densities of the elastoplasticity model were found to be in reasonable agreement with the measured dislocation densities of 10⁹ to 10¹⁰ cm⁻².