Fracture Toughness of Whisker Reinforced Aluminum Alloys

Abstract

Fracture toughness tests were conducted on silicon carbide (SiC) whisker reinforced aluminum alloys in order to establish and standardize the testing method for determining a plane-strain fracture toughness K_IC for whisker reinforced metals. Effects of whisker volume fraction and of whisker orientation on fracture toughness characteristics were studied on the basis of linear elastic fracture mechanics and fractography. Ultimate tensile strength σ_UTS greatly increased with increasing whisker volume fraction, but the increase in the whisker volume fraction resulted in a rapid decrease of K_IC.