Analyses of thermal expansion behavior of intergranular two-phase composites

Both analytical modeling and numerical simulations were performed to analyze residual thermal stresses and coefficients of thermal expansion (CTEs) of intergranular two-phase composites in a two-dimensional sense. A composite-circle model was adopted for analytical modeling. Model microstructures consisting of square-array, hexagon-array, and brick wall-array of grains with an intergranular phase as well as an actual microstructure of random-array grains with an intergranular phase were adopted for numerical simulations. The results showed that in predicting CTEs, the simple analytical model represents the two-dimensional composite well except that with brick wall-array grains, which induced significant anisotropic CTEs in the composite. The residual thermal stresses in composites were also discussed. (C) 2001 Kluwer Academic Publishers.