Several studies have found that the non-uniform distribution of reinforcing elements in a composite material can markedly influence its characteristics of elastic and plastic deformation and that a composite's overall response is influenced by the physical and geometrical properties of its reinforcing phases. The finite element method, Eshelby's method and dislocation mechanisms are usually employed in formulating a composite's constitutive response. This paper discusses a composite material containing SiC particles in an aluminum matrix. The purpose of this study was to find the correlation between a composite material's particle distribution and its resistance, and to come up with a mathematical model to predict the material's elastic behavior. The proposed formulation was applied to establish the thermal stress field in the aluminum-SiC composite resulting from its fabrication process, whereby the mixture is prepared at 600 °C and the composite material is used at room temperature. The analytical results, which are presented as stress probabilities, were obtained from the mathematical model proposed herein. These results were compared with the numerical ones obtained by the FEM method. A comparison of the results of the two methods, analytical and numerical, reveals very similar average thermal stress values. It is also shown that Maxwell-Boltzmann's distribution law can be applied to identify the correlation between the material's particle distribution and its resistance, using Eshelby's thermal stresses
A fundamental step in tube plugging management of a Steam Generator (SG), in a Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), is the tube structural integrity evaluation. The degradation of SG tubes may be considered one of the most serious problems found in PWRs operation, mainly when the tube material is the Inconel 600. The first repair criterion was based on the degradation mode where a uniform tube wall thickness corrosion thinning occurred. Thus, a requirement of a maximum depth of 40% of the tube wall thickness was imposed for any type of tube damage. A new approach considers different defects arising from different degradation modes, which comes from the in-service inspections (NDE) and how to consider the involved uncertainties. It is based on experimental results, using statistics to consider the involved uncertainties, to assess structural limits of PWR SG tubes. In any case, the obtained results, critical defect dimensions, are within the regulatory limits. In this paper this new approach will be discussed and it will be applied to two cases (two defects) using typical data of SG tubes of one Westinghouse NPP. The obtained results are compared with ‘historical’ approaches and some comments are addressed from the results and their comparison.
In previous works the authors discussed some issues related to a specific metallic matrix composites (MMC), the Aluminum matrix reinforced with SiC particles (Al+SiC) which has a metal matrix (powder) mixed with ceramic particles. These materials have some advantages when used as a structural material such as their high strength and good conformability. Their properties depend, among others, on the volumetric ratio, the particles size and distribution besides the matrix microstructure itself. Some of them are obtained at elevated temperature what produces a thermal stress state in the material. The Al+SiC is one of the later. The powder mix is extruded at 600oC and it is used at 20oC. Several numerical analyses were performed considering the random distribution of the particles and a non-linear behavior in the aluminum matrix. The results showed strong influence of the aluminum elastic-plastic behavior in the composite thermal stress distribution due to its manufacturing process. However, one issue remained: the size of the model. It represents the central portion of a Al+SiC bar which is only about 10 times the size of a single particle (~10L). The present work investigates, always numerically, the influence of the model size on the thermal stress distribution. It considers 2 sets of non-linear analyses with random distributed particles: one with 20 models with size of 20L each one, the other set with another 20 models with size 40L. This approach allows a view of the results tendency compared with the 10L ones. As done before, the modeled volumetric ratio has a very tight range of values with its average very near to the value in an actual Al+SiC composite. It is showed that the first model size was already enough to get good results without sacrificing neither the computer nor the analyst time.
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