An investigation of the isothermal creep response of Al-based composites by neutron diffraction

Discontinuously reinforced aluminium-based composites containing particulate or whisker SiC reinforcements at different volume fractions, were produced via a powder-route. Isothermal creep tests have been carried out at 270, 300 and 320 degrees C. During these tests axial and transverse strains were monitored using a non-contacting laser scanning extensometer arrangement. At the same time neutron diffraction has been used to measure the elastic phase strain evolution with composite creep deformation. It was found that after the initial loading the phase strains remained essentially constant during primary and secondary creep. This indicates that the initial matrix/reinforcement inelastic misfits remain largely unchanged, probably due to the setting up of a dynamic equilibrium between misfit generation and stress relaxation. For each system, the neutron data has been combined with Eshelby modelling to obtain a measure of the load transfer. It was found that while the reinforcement often bears the larger share of the load, under certain conditions this is not the case. This would suggest that under these conditions the presence of the reinforcement is deleterious to the composite creep response. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.