A review on micromechanical methods for evaluation of mechanical behavior of particulate reinforced metal matrix composites

Particulate reinforced metal matrix composites (PRMMC) are the most promising alternative for applications where the combination of high strength, elastic modulus, specific stiffness, strength-to-weight ratio and ductility is essential. Experimental investigation does not provide insightful information about microstructural aspects affecting the mechanical behavior of PRMMC, while the micromechanical methods can describe effectively. This paper presents the review on various analytical and computational micromechanical methods to evaluate the mechanical properties of particulate reinforced metal matrix composites. The effects of particle size, shape and orientation and interface strength on the mechanical behavior are presented. Stress-strain relationships, damage evolution, elastic and plastic deformations are also described. Computational micromechanical methods were found to provide better estimate of properties than analytical micromechanical methods. The order of preference among computational micromechanical methods is serial sectioning method, statistical synthetic method, multi-cell method, 2D real microstructure method and unit-cell method. However, serial sectioning method is highly expensive and demands lot of experimental and computational resources while the statistical synthetic method is economical and doesn't require many resources. Therefore, statistical synthetic method can be a better choice for computational micromechanics of particulate reinforced metal matrix composites to evaluate the mechanical behavior without experimentation.