Self-consistent matricity model to simulate the mechanical

behaviour of interpenetrating microstructures

Peter Lele, Ming Dong, Siegfried Schmauder
*
Staatliche Materialprufungsanstalt Stuttgart, Universita t Stuttgart, Pfaenwaldring 32, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany
Received 14 May 1999; accepted 14 June 1999
Abstract
A self-consistent matricity model has been developed to simulate the mechanical behaviour of composites with two
randomly distributed phases of interpenetrating microstructures. The model is an extension of the self-consistent model
for matrices with randomly distributed inclusions. In addition to the volume fraction of the phases, the matricity model
allows a further parameter of the microstructure, the matricity M of each phase, to be included into the simulation of
the mechanical behaviour of composites with interpenetrating microstructures. The model is applied to the calculation
of stressstrain curves and strain distribution curves of an Fe/18vol.%Ag-composite as well as to stressstrain curves of
a Ag/58vol.%Ni-composite and its validity and superiority upon previous models is demonstrated. The matricities of
the phases inuence the stressstrain behaviour mainly within the bounds between M0.3 and M0.7. Beyond these
bounds, there exists only a minor inuence of matricity on the stressstrain behaviour. Good agreement has been
obtained between experiment and calculation with respect to the composites' mechanical behaviour and the matricity
model is thus found to represent well metal matrix composites with interpenetrating microstructures. The matricity
model can be applied to describe the mechanical behaviour of arbitrary microstructures as observed in two phase
functionally graded materials, where the volume fraction as well as the matricity of the phases vary between the extreme
values of 0 and 1. 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PACS: 62.20.Dc; 62.20.Fe; 81.05.Mh; 81.05.Ni; 81.05.Zx
Keywords: Finite-element method; Interpenetrating structures; Matricity model; Residual stresses; Simulation of mechanical behaviour
1. Introduction
Coarse isotropic interpenetrating microstructures are often found in powder metallurgically fabricated
composites in the regime of 2575% volume fraction, or result from the inltration of a porous material with
a molten metal of a lower melting point. The arrangement of the phases in most of these technical composites
is usually random, resulting in an isotropic overall mechanical behaviour of these composites. Besides the
volume fraction, such a material requires at least one further parameter to describe the microstructure more
closely. In this paper the selected further parameter is the `Matricity', which was rst introduced by Poech [1]
Computational Materials Science 15 (1999) 455465
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +49-711-685-2556; fax: +49-711-685-2635.
E-mail address: schmauder@mpa.uni-stuttgart.de (S. Schmauder)
0927-0256/99/$ - see front matter 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 9 2 7 - 0 2 5 6 ( 9 9 ) 0 0 0 3 3 - 6
for two-phase steels and later used by Soppa [2] for the characterisation of Ag/Ni composites. This pa-
rameter can be measured from a representative micrograph of a microstructure via an image analysing
system and also be included in a nite element model which was developed for this kind of microstructure
[36]. In this paper the model is applied to examine the inuence of microscopical residual stresses on the
macroscopical behaviour of composites and the impact of matricity on these residual stresses.
2. Matricity
In the following, composites of two phases a and b are considered. Matricity is dened as the fraction of
the length of the skeleton lines of one phase S
a
, and the length of the skeleton lines of the participating
phases
w
a


a

b
X 1
By denition, the sum of the matricities of all phases equals to one
w
a
w
b
1X 2
To obtain the skeleton lines of a certain phase, we must select this phase within an image analysing
system and reduce the detected structure to a typically non-connecting line by maintaining the topology. In
Fig. 1 the matricities have been determined for a ZrO
2
/NiCr 80 20 cermet which was powder metallurgically
fabricated at the University of Dortmund [7]. The structure parameters volume fraction f and matricity M
have been determined to be f
NiCr
0.3 and M
NiCr
0.2.
3. Matricity model
To take both the parameters into account for the calculation of the mechanical behaviour of the
composite, an extension of the embedded cell model [8,9] has been developed. The embedded cell model has
Fig. 1. Micrograph of a ZrO
2
/NiCr 80 20 composite with 30% volume fraction of ZrO
2
. (Left: greyscale picture, right: binary image
with skeleton lines.)
456 P. Lele et al. / Computational Materials Science 15 (1999) 455465
been introduced to simulate the mechanical behaviour of composites with randomly distributed inclusions,
where the volume fraction of the inclusions is the main parameter in the model. To take the matricity as
second microstructural parameter into account, the self-consistent embedded cell model has been extended
by a second self-consistent embedded cell model (Fig. 2). In this `matricity model' we are able to dene the
matricity of the model in the same manner as the matricity is dened in a real microstructure.
First the single phases are reduced to skeleton lines. The lengths of the skeleton lines of the inclusions
(Fig. 2, left: b; right: a) are zero as the inclusions are spherical and are, therefore, reduced to a point in the
process of obtaining the matricity of the phase.
The lengths of the skeleton lines S
a
and S
b
in the matrices are given as the circumference of a circle with a
diameter which is calculated as the arithmetic average of the diameter of the embedded cell and the di-
ameter of the inclusion phase (Fig. 2, left: S
a
; right: S
b
).
The diameters of the embedded cells are denominated as W
1
and W
2
. The diameters of the inclusion part
of the embedded cells depend on the volume fraction of the inclusions and the corresponding factors W
1
or
W
2
.
For the 3D case, the diameter of the inclusion b (Fig. 2, left) is derived as a function of W
1
and the
volume fraction f
b
of b in this cell as
h
b

1

f
b
3
_
_ _
3
and, analogous for inclusion a (Fig. 2, right) as
h
a

2

f
a
3
_
_ _
X 4
Therefore, we derive the skeleton line lengths as

a
p
1

f
b
3
_
1
_ _
2
5
and

b
p
2
1

f
a
3
p

2
X 6
By taking into account that
f
a
f
b
1Y 7
Fig. 2. Matricity-model (schematic) with skeleton lines to adjust the measured parameter `Matricity' in the model via the factors W
1
and W
2
.
P. Lele et al. / Computational Materials Science 15 (1999) 455465 457
the matricity M can be calculated as a function of the sizes of the embedded cells and the volume fraction of
one of the two phases, as the volume fraction of the phases is held constant in both parts of the matricity
model
w
a


a

1
p

f
b
3
_
1
2
_ _

2
p

f
a
3
p
1
2
_ _

1
p

f
b
3
_
1
2
_ _ 8
or
w
a


1

1 f
a
3
p
1

f
a
3
p
1
1

1 f
a
3
p
1
X 9
4. Adjusting matricity in the model
As can be seen in Fig. 2, the volume fractions of the phases as well as the diameters W
1
and W
2
of the
embedded cells are adjustable. To achieve a matricity M in the model, we rst realise the measured volume
fraction of the phases in the model and then calculate the diameters W
1
and W
2
. The corresponding di-
ameters W
1
and W
2
are obtained by rearranging Eq. (9)

1

2

1 f
b
3
_
_
1
_
1 w
b
w
b

f
b
3
_
1
_ _ Y
2
1Y 0 for w
b
P0Y 5 10
or

2

1

1 f
a
3
_
_
1
_
1 w
a
w
a

f
a
3
p
1
Y
1
1Y 0 for w
a
P0Y 5X 11
5. Realisation of the adjustability of matricity by weighting factors
If the geometrical boundary conditions are modelled at a distance of about ve times the radius of the
embedded cell, they are of almost no inuence on the models' mechanical behaviour. If we take care that
the boundary conditions keep remote we can model the embedded cell with the surrounding composite in
dierent manners (Fig. 3). As the remote boundary conditions have almost no inuence on the mechanical
Fig. 3. Independence of mechanical behaviour from size variations of embedded and embedding medium (schematic).
458 P. Lele et al. / Computational Materials Science 15 (1999) 455465
behaviour of the embedded cell it is assumed that the continuum mechanical stressstrain state in the
embedded cell is hardly inuenced as well. Taking this into account, a unit cell for a specic volume fraction
can be used for each part of the matricity model. Further we can see from the almost independency from
remote boundaries, that it is not necessary to model the matricity as a parameter of the FE-mesh but it is
possible to introduce the matricity adjusting weighting factors W
1
and W
2
only in the evaluation of the
results from the inclusion type geometries. As the results have to be determined by an iterative calculation
in about 35 iterations, the adjusting weighting factors W
1
and W
2
must be introduced in the evaluation of
all iteration steps (Fig. 4).
6. Calculation of stressstrain curves
In principle, stressstrain curves of the two-phase composite are determined from the matricity model in
the same iterative manner as it is done for the simple self-consistent embedded cell model. In each increment
the components for stress and strain are determined. This is done by a weighted averaging of the stress and
strain values over all integration points of both embedded cells. The three-dimensional weighting is done by
the `integration point volume' V
k0
of each corresponding Gaussian integration point, which must be
multiplied by
3
1
and
3
2
, respectively, to account for the matricity eects as described above. The factors
W
i
are in the power of three as the length of the skeleton lines depend linearly on W
i
but the embedded cell
volumes depend by the power of three (for the 3D case) on W
i
. With these considerations the stress and
strain components can be calculated as
r
ij

r
k
ij

k
Y iY j xY yY z or rY zY /Y 12
e
ij

e
k
ij

k
Y iY j xY yY z or rY zY / 13
or more detailed (only for the stress components)
r
ij

r
k
ij

k0

3
1
_ _
1

r
k
ij

k0

3
2
_ _
2

k0

3
1

k0

3
2
Y 14
where k is the index of summation and 1 or 2 are the part of matricity model whose embedded cell is
weighted by W
1
or W
2
.
Fig. 4. Realisation (schematic) of the adjustability of matricity by weighting factors.
P. Lele et al. / Computational Materials Science 15 (1999) 455465 459
From the stress components, the von Mises equivalent stress at each strain increment is calculated as
(Eqs. (15) and (16) are only valid for Cartesian coordinates)
r
v

r
2
xx
r
2
yy
r
2
zz
r
xx
r
yy
r
yy
r
zz
r
zz
r
xx
3 r
2
xy
r
2
yz
r
2
zx
_ _
_
15
and the equivalent strain is given as
e
v

1
1 l

e
2
xx
e
2
yy
e
2
zz
e
xx
e
yy
e
yy
e
zz
e
zz
e
xx
3 c
2
xy
c
2
yz
c
2
zx
_ _
_
Y 16
where l is the elasticplastic Poisson's ratio of the composite.
7. Mechanical constants
Poisson's ratio l and tangent modulus T
0
at zero strain are calculated from the obtained stress and strain
components r
ij
and e
ij
. Poisson's ratio l is calculated from the context of elastic constants [10]
l
3u i
6u
Y 17
where K is the bulk modulus and E is the Young's modulus. K is dened as [10]
u
r
H
3e
H

r
xx
r
yy
r
zz

3e
xx
e
yy
e
zz

X 18
If we consider a material where the elastic modulus E equals the gradient of the stressstrain curve at
zero strain, then we can determine the constants K and E from the calculated stressstrain curve. As the
moduli change with changing strains we have to extrapolate the bulk modulus K and the tangent modulus T
from values near zero-strain to a value at zero-strain (Fig. 5).
Fig. 5. Calculation of tangent modulus T
0
by extrapolation of secant modulus values at zero-strain.
460 P. Lele et al. / Computational Materials Science 15 (1999) 455465
8. Yield stress
In this paper the yield stress is calculated as the stress belonging to the cross point of the stressstrain
curve and a straight line through the 0.2% strain point with the gradient that equals to the above calculated
tangent modulus. The model does not include any damage parameter or failure criterion. This might lead to
unrealistic high yield stresses for composites with dominating linear elastic material behaviour.
9. Results and discussion
The quality of the matricity model to simulate stressstrain curves and strain distribution frequencies
especially for two ductile phases has been demonstrated in [36]. In this paper we compare the matricity
model with other models and examine the inuence of the matricity parameter on stressstrain curves and
on the inuence of residual stresses.
Fig. 6. Model microstructures of regular hexagons by Siegmund et al. [11].
P. Lele et al. / Computational Materials Science 15 (1999) 455465 461
9.1. Comparison to cluster parameter r
The cluster parameter r
c
(c aY b) is dened in [11] as
r
c

x
c
x
a
x
b
Y 19
where c aY b and N
c
is the number of clusters of phase c.
Fig. 6 shows some model microstructures which have been calculated with distinguishable assumptions.
To compare with the numerical yield stress results based on Eq. (19) [11] we modelled the microstructures
also with the matricity model. To do this the matricity of the microstructures were derived by phase re-
duction (cf. Matricity) which is shown in Fig. 7. The comparison of the matricity model results with the
results in [11] shows good agreement with real structure calculations for both models (Fig. 8). The ad-
Fig. 7. Determination of matricity M for the hexagonal model microstructure with f
b
0.5 [11]. (Left: original microstructure, right:
binary image with skeleton lines.)
Fig. 8. Yield stress of a/b composite. (

in [11],

in [11] calculated from [12].)
462 P. Lele et al. / Computational Materials Science 15 (1999) 455465
vantage of the matricity model might be that dierently sized clusters provide a dierent contribution to the
inuence of this cluster to the overall mechanical behaviour, whereas the cluster parameter model assumes
that all clusters, independent of the cluster sizes, are equally weighted. An obvious advantage of the
matricity model is the good agreement of calculated strain distribution frequencies to experimentally ob-
tained results (cf. [36]).
9.2. Matricity and stressstrain curves
The inuence of the matricity on the overall mechanical behaviour can be shown by comparing the
calculated stressstrain curves while keeping the volume fraction f of the phases constant and by varying
only the matricity M of the phases (this means to vary W
i
correspondingly for evaluating the results). A
parameter study was made for a ZrO
2
/NiCr 80 20 composite where the volume fraction f of the phases were
kept constant and the matricity M was varied between 0 and 1. This means that the microstructure lies in a
range between a pure inclusion microstructure and a pure matrix microstructure for one phase and vice
versa for the other phase. In Fig. 9, stressstrain curves are shown for two dierent matricities w
ZrO
2
( 0.3
and 0.4) with and without residual stresses caused by cooling down the material from processing to en-
vironmental temperature. Fig. 10 shows the inuence of the matricity on the yield stress. The inuence of
matricity is decisive in the range between M0.3 and M0.7. Taking residual stresses into account we can
recognise that the inuence of matricity on the yield stress diminishes. This can be explained with the
modelled isotropic hardening of the ductile NiCr 80 20 phase, which is plastically deformed by residual
stresses when acting as a matrix. However, no plastication is obtained when this phase acts as a pure
inclusion and, therefore, hardly any hardening of the composite will be expected.
10. Conclusion
The inuence of the parameter matricity M besides the parameter volume fraction f on the overall
behaviour of two phase composites with coarse interpenetrating microstructures is clearly shown. Espe-
cially in cases, when the composite consists of a ductile and a linear-elastic phase, a signicant inuence of
Fig. 9. Stressstrain curves of ZrO
2
/NiCr 80 20 composite with f
ZrO
2
0X3 and two dierent matricities. (i
ZrO
2
206 GPa,
E
NiCr 80 20
214 GPa, a
ZrO
2
10 10
6
K
1
, a
NiCr 80 20
14 10
6
K
1
.)
P. Lele et al. / Computational Materials Science 15 (1999) 455465 463
the matricity on stressstrain curves has been found. It is also found that the inuence of residual stresses
on yield stress depends strongly on the volume fraction and the matricity of the ductile phase. The
comparison with model structure calculations shows the high quality of the matricity model. The matricity
model must be built once for each volume fraction and the matricity is then considered in the evaluation of
the result during the iterative calculation process. The model is, therefore, very simple with respect to FE-
meshing, and can be quite coarse, as the stressstrain components were evaluated as arithmetical averages
over the elements of both embedded cells.
Acknowledgements
Financial support by the German Research Society (DFG) under grant Schm 746/12-1 is gratefully
acknowledged.
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ZrO
2
0X3 and dierent matricities M. (i
ZrO
2
206 GPa, E
NiCr 80 20
214
GPa, a
ZrO
2
10 10
6
K
1
, a
NiCr 80 20
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