FE simulation of uniaxial tensile behavior of SiC reinforced AA5083 alloy

ABSTRACT

Reinforcements added to pure AA5083 alloy are known to lower the overall weight while improving the strength of the Metal Matrix Composite (MMC). In this work, Silicon carbide (SiC) particles are added to pure AA5083 in varying quantities (3%, 5%, 7% and 10%), and tested to failure using tensile testing. The stress-strain behavior is decomposed into the elastic and plastic behavior and is validated using Finite Element (FE) modeling. The results exhibited an increase in ultimate tensile strength (UTS) of the MMC up to 5% of SiC. The formation of intermetallic compounds due to reactions at high concentrations of SiC resulted in debonding in the MMC and thus reduction in UTS. In this work, the response of the material between yield and complete failure is characterized using VOCE nonlinear model in FE analysis. It is observed that MMC with 5% SiC has shown maximum UTS (340.34 Mpa), while MMC with 10% SiC content has resulted in the most ductility (27% plastic strain) of all the compositions. Further, MMC with 7% SiC has highest saturation stress (R₀ = 653.09 Mpa) and lowest ductility, while MMC with 10% SiC has lowest saturation stress (R₀ = 115.57 Mpa) and highest ductility.

Keywords
VOCE; AA5083; Plasticity; ANSYS; Metal Matrix Composites