Issue 50

V. Kytopoulos et alii, Frattura ed Integrità Strutturale, 50 (2019) 414-422; DOI: 10.3221/IGF-ESIS.50.35 421 0.80 0.85 0.90 0.95 0 50 100 150 ḹ[sec -1 ] ρ z [μm] MMC-2124 MMC-8090 0.25 0.50 0.75 1.00 0 150 300 450 Ῑ[sec -1 ] ρ z [μm] MMC-2124 MMC-8090 Ĩ [sec -1 ] Ĩ [sec -1 ] (a) (b) Figure 5 : Reduced structural integrity changes ahead of notch root after thermal shock process (a) before tensile loading and (b) after subsequent tensile loading. Reduction to unity of undamaged (virgin) material. Strain rate 10 -5 sec -1 . Table 3 : Basic final results of micro-damage evaluation measurements of the investigated materials, after thermal shock. second by the formation of an increased process zone ahead of the notch root. Thereafter, by comparing the data presented in Tables 2 and 3, one can generally state that the combined (superimposed) mechanical and thermal damage processes seems to influence more the MMC 2124 and less the MMC8090 material. C ONCLUSIONS The experiments conducted showed that, within the experimental scatter of the proposed semi-quantitative approach and under the same experimental conditions, the MMC with higher ductility of the matrix exhibits a higher proneness to mechanical load - induced damage compared to the MMC material with lower ductility. Based on the principle of elastic- plastic damage, this behavior can be explained by the general fact that larger differences in ductility between matrix and SiC particles may result to a larger misfit and accommodation loss between inclusion and matrix. This, in turn, leads to an associated intensive micro-cracking and debonding damage activity, taking place within the matrix-particle interface of the composite. In this aspect strain hardening rate effects seem to play a decisive role. Furthermore, it was shown that increasing deformation rate leads to significant changes of the damage activity ahead of the edge-crack, a fact that is equivalent to a strain rate induced embrittlement of the material. This behavior seems to be more pronounced in MMCs with higher matrix ductility. At the same time, it is concluded that the material with larger differences in the elastic-plastic parameter of its constituent phases seems to exhibit a larger proneness to thermal shock damage. In general, the observed proneness to thermal shock damage may be explained by the combined effect of macroscopic and microscopic thermo-elastic stress concentration processes which may promote at first the physico-mechanical degradation of the particle-matrix interphase. In general, it can be stated that the proposed technique can give a reliable semi-quantitative approach for micro-damage- controlled structural integrity evaluation and characterization of materials. MATERIAL Damage number q d Specific damage number δ=q d /ρ z MMC 8090 thermal shock 0.13 3.0 x 10 -4 MMC 2124 thermal shock 0.19 2.3 x 10 -2 MMC 8090 thermal shock and tensile load 0.33 1.3 x 10 -2 MMC 2124 thermal shock and tensile load 0.57 2.7 x 10 -3