Abstract
Silicon carbide fibre reinforced titanium metal matrix composites are being developed for application in aircraft engine components in which such composite materials are usually used for local reinforcement. They can be manufactured from matrix-coated fibres by aligning the coated fibres into a die or a canister which is then subjected to a high temperature process. The consolidation process is therefore important in determining the properties of the final composite. Modelling of the process allows predictions of the optimum temperature, pressure and time required to obtain fully dense composites with satisfactory engineering properties. The present paper addresses the development of a simple model for the consolidation of matrix-coated fibre composites by considering that an array of matrix-coated fibres can be represented as a homogeneous porous material, for which the porous material constitutive equations developed in the literature are appropriate. The constitutive equations required determination of overall composite properties for all temperatures and volume fractions of fibres. The composite consolidation model has been implemented into a nonlinear finite element software within a large deformation formulation by means of two different user subroutines, one providing a general implementation, and the other a cpu-time efficient approach. The model predictions compare well with the experimental results.
