Materials Science and Engineering A 527 (2010) 7545–7551

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Materials Science and Engineering A

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/msea

Experiment and modeling of mechanical properties on iron matrix composites

reinforced by different types of ceramic particles
J. Li, B.Y. Zong ∗ , Y.M. Wang, W.B. Zhuang
Key Laboratory for Anisotropy Design and Texture Engineering of Materials (Ministry of Education), Northeastern University, Shenyang 110004, PR China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The strength, Young’s modulus and hardness properties of iron matrix composites reinforced by differ-
Received 3 February 2010 ent types of ceramic particles (SiC, Cr3 C2 , TiC and Ti(C, N)) prepared by the dynamic temperature control
Received in revised form 15 July 2010 direct current heating technology were investigated experimentally. The stress–strain curves of the dif-
Accepted 12 August 2010
ferent composites and stress in reinforcing particles were simulated by Eshelby approach modeling in
order to interpret the experiments and to reveal the strengthening mechanisms. It was found that SiC
reinforcing particles show the strongest effect on improving the strength of the composite among the
Keywords:
four types of reinforcements experimentally. The theoretical analysis exposes the reason as its higher
Iron matrix composite
Reinforcing particles
fracture toughness and hardness as well as a limited decomposition to increase matrix strength. The
Stress–strain curve strength of the four composites all presents a maximum value at 10% volume fraction and the reason
Modeling can be interpreted by that glomeration of particulate reinforcements happens remarkably only when the
Strengthening mechanism fraction is over 10%. The stress–strain curves by the modeling agree well with those of the experiments
on TiC/Fe and Ti(C, N)/Fe composites but not on SiC/Fe and Cr3 C2 /Fe composites. This suggests that the
strengthening mechanisms of the composites rely not only on load sharing of the reinforcements but also
on increasing matrix strength.
© 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction The most commonly used ceramic particles for reinforcement

Metal matrix composites, especially aluminum matrix com-
posite, have been used widely in many advanced engineering
applications, such as modern automobile and aerospace indus-
tries [1,2]. It is interesting to use iron as the matrix material in
the composite system because of its low cost and the possibility
of heat treatment, as well as better machinability and weldabil-
ity [2,3]. Iron matrix composites were popularly manufactured by
liquid-phase processes or conventional powder metallurgy [3–6].
However, iron melt reacts strongly with silicon carbide but wets it
moderately [6], so it is not suitable by liquid-phase sintering. The
normal powder metallurgy (P/M) and even hot isotropic press sin-
tering both take a long time sintering more than 2 h and result in
heavy interface reaction between the SiC particles and the matrix
[6,7]. The mechanical properties of the iron matrix composites
reported in literature are not good because of the decomposition of
SiC particles [3–7]. A dynamic temperature control direct current
heating technology based on our previous work has been devel-
oped, which makes the manufacture feasible and low cost with
excellent properties due to less than 300 s short processing time
[8–10].
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 24 83681311; fax: +86 24 23906316.
E-mail address: ypzong@mail.neu.edu.cn (B.Y. Zong).
of various types in metal matrix composites include various oxides
(e.g., Al2 O3 and ZrO2 ), nitrides (e.g., TiN and Si3 N4 ), and car-
bides (e.g., SiC, TiC, Cr3 C2 , VC, and B4 C) [11]. It was reported that
Cr3 C2 and TiN have better effect on improving the properties of
the iron matrix composites than A12 O3 and TiC particles, but the
reinforcing particles were not in the same size in the investiga-
tion [12]. It is extremely interesting to know the fundamental
effects of different types and volume fraction of reinforcement
on mechanical properties of the composites and the reports on
the effects are far from enough and consistent to draw any con-
clusions. Nevertheless, the most relevant investigations on iron
matrix composite in literature were carried out by the con-
ventional processes to result in low mechanical properties and
the data have less applicability to compare each other. A sys-
tematical investigation is needed to establish such conclusions
using the advanced two-stage direct current heating technol-
ogy.
A number of theoretical models have been brought forth to dis-
cuss the mechanical behaviors of particle-reinforced metal matrix
composites [13–17]. Effective medium approximation model was
introduced to study the effects of particle size, size distribution
and volume fraction on the deformation response by comparing
the simulated and experimental stress–strain curves for SiC/Al
and Si/Al composite [15]. The Paul model, the Paul estimation
of modulus upper and lower bounds and the Halpin-Tsai model

0921-5093/$ – see front matter © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.msea.2010.08.029
7546 J. Li et al. / Materials Science and Engineering A 527 (2010) 7545–7551
were proposed to predict the variation of the elastic modulus for
graphite/Al and SiC/Al composite [16]. The Mori–Tanaka model, the
two-phase self-consistent model and so on were developed to sim-
plify predictions of the monotonic uniaxial response of an isotropic
particle-reinforced metal by calculating the stress–strain curves
of Al2 O3 /Al and Al/Al composites [17]. The particle-compounded
mechanical model based on Eshelby approach has been devel-
oped to calculate load partition between reinforcements and matrix
during straining based on the load transfer mechanism [18–20].
The model was used to simulate the stress–strain curves of SiC
particulate reinforced aluminum alloy matrix composites success-
fully [18–20]. Such modeling on iron matrix composites is needed
to supply a theoretical analysis on experimental results by cal-
culating stress in different reinforcing particles and stress–strain
curves.
The purpose of the present work is to reveal the strength-
ening mechanisms of the iron matrix composites reinforced
by different types of ceramic particles prepared by the direct
current heating technology. The SiC, TiC, Cr3 C2 and Ti(C, N)
in the same size were chosen to study effect of differ-
ent reinforcing particles and volume fraction (5%, 10% and
15%) on properties of the composite. Modeling based on
ours previous work is carried out to explain experimental
results.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Materials and experimental procedure
The four types of SiC, Cr3 C2 , TiC and Ti(C, N) reinforcing
particles used in the experiment are all commercial pow-
der products with ≥99.85% purity rate. The average particle
size of all the ceramic powders is 3 ␮m in commercial nomi-
nal standard. The iron powder used is commercial deoxidized
powder of 98.68 wt.% purity, and the maximum C content is
0.015 wt.%. The average particle size of iron powder is 50.6 ␮m
and 1 wt.% zinc stearate was added as caking agent and lubri-
cant.
Each powder mixture was blended for 16 h and then com-
pressed into a block of 60 mm × 30 mm × 10 mm in volume by
240 MPa pressure. All the green compact blocks were sintered
by a dynamic temperature control direct current heating tech-
nology, which has been developed in our laboratory with new
equipment adapted from a traditional hot pressing furnace [8–10].
Intense current passes the powder compacts directly by using
ceramic dies in addition of a dynamic temperature control to
speed up the sintering for the purpose of avoiding the reaction
between reinforcements and the iron matrix. The pressure dur-
ing the sintering in this study was limited to 40 MPa according
to the performance of the ceramic die and the sinter volts were
5 V. The sintering includes two stages, i.e. heating stage and hold-
ing stage. The heating up time of the first stage was 100 s and the
holding time of the second stage was 200 s. The current was con-
ducted for 1 s and broken for 1 s alternately during the holding
stage.
Tensile tests were performed at room temperature with a veloc-
ity of 0.3 mm/min and the specimens are of 28 mm gauge length
and 5 mm diameter. At least three tests were carried out on each
experimental datum. The extension to the tensile strength was
measured from load–displacement curves. The tensile test was
carried out on CCS electronical stretcher and both the extensome-
ter and the strain gauge were used in order to obtain whole
stress–strain curves. Specimens were unloaded just after yield-
ing and then reloaded until failure to measure elastic modulus
accurately. The microstructure of the composites was observed by
means of optical microscopy and SEM with an energy spectrome-
ter.
2.2. Model
Following Eshelby’s idea, based on the concept of mismatch
strain between the reinforcing particles and the matrix during com-
posite straining, the compliance tensor of the composite with two
random types of reinforcements, Cc−1 , can be derived [20]:
Cc−1 = Cm
−1
(I + fI QI (I + L) + f2 Q2 (I + L)), (1)
where QI = ((CI − Cm )SI + Cm )−1 (Cm − CI ), SI is the Eshelby ten-
sor of particle type 1, Q2 = ((C2 − Cm )S2 + Cm )−1 (Cm − C2 ),
S2 is the Eshelby tensor of particle type 2,
L = (I + fI (SI − I)QI + f2 (S2 − I)Q2 )−1 ( − fI (SI − I)QI − f2 (S2 − I)Q2 ), I
is the unit matrix, fI and f2 are the volume fractions of two types
of particles respectively, CI , C2 and Cm are the stiffness tensors of
particle type 1, type 2 and the matrix respectively. The composites
studied here have only one type of reinforcing particles, so f2 = 0
and C2 = 0 in this paper.
Young’s modulus and Poisson ratio of both the reinforcing
particles and the matrix are constant within elastic stage of the
composite during tension so composite modulus can be calculated
by Eq. (1). However, when the plastic deformation takes place in
composite, that is the matrix begins to yield, the stress and strain
of the matrix is no longer linear relationship but may follow the
constitutive relation of measured matrix alloy stress–strain curve,
and the Young’s modulus and Poisson ratio of the matrix should be
substituted by secant ones. The secant modulus Es and the secant
Poisson ratio s of a material are defined as [18–20]:
1
Es = , (2)
1/E 0 + (ε̃p /(y + h(ε̃p )n ))
1
1  Es
s = − − 0 , (3)
2 2 E0
where ε̃p is the equivalent plastic strain, and it can be calculated
according to the equation ε̃p = ε − /E 0 in which ε and  are the
flow strain and flow stress. (y + h(ε̃p )n ) is the flow stress, .
The numerical secant modulus of matrix from experimental
tensile test curve of the matrix has been used to calculate the
secant modulus of the composite at different strains by Eq. (1).
To begin with a small strain of the matrix, we set a strain incre-
ment of 0.001 and repeat the process so that one more point on
the curve of the composite can be simulated. After a number of
repetitions, the stress–strain curve of the composite will be finally
simulated.
The stress in the particles under the applied stress  0 is found
out as [19]:
I = m + I0 + ¯ I = 2Cm (I + (SI − I) QI ) (I + L) e0 , (4)
where e0 is the elastic strain of the matrix under the applied stress
 0 , eT is the transformation strain or eigenstrain, ec is the con-
strained strain with ec = SI eT . Therefore, we can also calculate the
load sharing of reinforcing particles during straining the composite.
The model was applied to simulate the stress–strain curve of SiC
particulate reinforced aluminum alloy matrix composites [18–20]
formerly and shown a very good agreement with the measured
curves. The model is used here for the iron matrix composites and
will be compared with the experiment to check flexibility of the
model. The modeling will be used to examine the effect of different
reinforcing particles on improving the strength of the composite as
a function of volume fraction to discuss the strengthening mecha-
nism.
The stress–strain curve of monolithic iron matrix is needed in
order to simulate the stress–strain curves of the composites. There-
 J. Li et al. / Materials Science and Engineering A 527 (2010) 7545–7551
Fig. 1. Comparison of the stress–strain curves between modeling and experiments:
(a) for TiC/Fe and Ti(C, N)/Fe composites and (b) for SiC/Fe and Cr3 C2 /Fe composites.
fore, a monolithic iron matrix alloy was prepared by the same
processing as for the composites. The stress–strain curve of the
alloy was obtained from tensile test and is shown in Fig. 1(b). The
0.2% proof stress and Young’s modulus of the iron matrix alloy
are 422 MPa and 168 GPa respectively by tensile test and used in
the modeling. The elastic properties of the reinforcements are tab-
ulated in Table 1, which are used for the present modeling. The
Poisson ratio of the iron matrix is taken as 0.28 [21] and the aspect
ratio of all the reinforcing particles is selected as 1.2 approximately
according to the microstructure observation.
3. Results
Comparison of the stress–strain curves between modeling and
experiments for the composites reinforced by different types of
ceramic particles is shown in Fig. 1 and the volume fraction of
reinforcements is 10% for all the composites. It is shown that the
curves of TiC/Fe and Ti(C, N)/Fe composite predicted by the model-
ing agree well with the corresponding experimental curves shown
in Fig. 1(a). This is a quite cheerful result to prove the great flexi-
bility of the Eshelby mean field model, which we have only proved
its affectivity for aluminum matrix composites before. The agree-
Table 1
Elastic properties of the reinforcements used in present modeling.
Reinforcement Young’s modulus (GPa) Poisson ratio
SiC 450 0.17
Cr3 C2 380 0.24
TiC 438 0.19
Ti(C, N) 525 0.21
7547
Fig. 2. Comparison of yield strength between modeling and experiments: (a) by
experiment and (b) by modeling.
ment between the modeling and the experiment tells us that load
sharing of the reinforcements is the chief strengthening mecha-
nism of those composites. However, the experimental stress–strain
curves of the composites reinforced by SiC and Cr3 C2 particles are
both much higher than the curves predicted by modeling shown
in Fig. 1(b). This suggests that better strengthening effect of the SiC
and Cr3 C2 ceramic particles comes not from their good elastic prop-
erties that the modeling takes account for but may come from their
good mechanical properties and better chemical properties to the
iron matrix. The much higher stress–strain curves of the compos-
ites than the predictions indicate that the reinforcements are not
only to share load from the matrix but also to increase the strength
of the matrix.
Fig. 2 shows the comparison of the yield strength between
modeling and experiment for the composites. The experimental
data in Fig. 2(a) indicates the SiC reinforcing particles having the
strongest effect on improving the yield strength among the other
reinforcements. This can offer a very significant reference for the
development of particulate reinforced iron matrix composite and is
first reported in literature. The Cr3 C2 reinforcements also present
a good strengthening effect over the TiC and Ti(C, N) reinforcing
particles. However, the modeling results show a very small differ-
ence between the four types of reinforcement shown in Fig. 2(b)
and even expose the best effect of Ti(C, N) owing to its highest
elastic modulus over the others. This suggests that the mechan-
ical, chemical or physical properties of reinforcing particles may
Reference play very important roles on strengthening the composite. It can be
[18] found out in Table 2 that SiC reinforcing particles have higher frac-
[21] ture toughness than the other three reinforcing particles, as well
[21] as higher hardness. These two factors probably make SiC the best
[22]
reinforcement type in iron matrix.
7548 J. Li et al. / Materials Science and Engineering A 527 (2010) 7545–7551

Table 2
Mechanical and physical properties of the different types of reinforcing particles used in present study.

Reinforcing particles Fracture toughness Hardness (HV) Electrical resistivity Melting point (◦ C) Coefficient of Reference
(MPa m1/2 ) (×10−6  m) thermal expansion
(×10−6 K−1 )

SiC 4.8 3000–3500 5.3 2700 4.0 [21,23]

Cr3 C2 4.6 2700 5.64 1895 10.3 [21,23]
TiC 4.5 2900–3200 1.8 3200 7.4 [21,24]
Ti(C, N) 4.5 1800–2100 0.334 3000 6.8 [21,22,24]

It is surprisingly noticed that the yield strength of four compos-
ites all demonstrates a same phenomenon of maximum value at
volume fraction of 10% by experiment shown in Fig. 2(a) whereas
the yield strength of the four composites all increases continu-
ously with the increase of reinforcement volume fraction linearly
by modeling shown in Fig. 2(b). The discrepancy here suggests not
only a further strengthening mechanism apart from load sharing
in the composites but also the complexity in effects of process-
ing procedures upon the property. A most possible explanation
may rely on that there are some micro-voids in the composites
if the volume fraction is higher than 15%, which would result in a
fracture mechanism of the composite instead of yielding failure to
lead to a strength abrupt drop. This needs a further observation of
microstructure to provide evidence in next section later.
The comparison of Young’s modulus between modeling and
experiments for the composites is given in Fig. 3. Young’s modulus
of the composites by the modeling agrees well with the experi-
ments for all the four composites as a function of volume fraction.
The modulus of the composites increases with increasing volume
fraction of reinforcing particles monotonously both in modeling
and experiment. The successful prediction of the modeling on the
modulus implies the load sharing nature of the reinforcements in
the composites during straining. However, it can be seen if with
a careful examination of Fig. 3 that the modulus value of the com-
posites by experiment comes a series of SiC/Fe, Cr3 C2 /Fe, TiC/Fe and
Ti(C, N)/Fe from high to low whereas the modeling gives the series
in a consequence of Ti(C, N)/Fe, SiC/Fe, TiC/Fe and Cr3 C2 /Fe. The
affectivity of different reinforcements on stiffness of the compos-
ite predicted by modeling goes wrong in the series, which suggests
that the stiffness of the composites is not depended on elasticity of
reinforcement but on the bond condition with the matrix because
the yield strength of the composites comes the same series as the
stiffness both in experiment.
The influence of reinforcement type and volume fraction on ten-
sile strength of iron matrix composites by experiment is shown
in Fig. 4(a). It is apparent that the trend of tensile strength as a
function of reinforcement volume fraction as well as types of rein-
forcing particles is similar to that observed for the yield strength.
The Vickers hardness values of the composites by experiment are
given in Fig. 4(b). The hardness shows general same phenomena

Fig. 3. Comparison of Young’s modulus between modeling and experiments: (a) by Fig. 4. Influence of reinforcement type and volume fraction on the tensile strength
experiment and (b) by modeling. and hardness of the composites by experiment: (a) tensile strength and (b) hardness.
 J. Li et al. / Materials Science and Engineering A 527 (2010) 7545–7551
Fig. 5. Stress in the reinforcing particles as a function of (a) volume fraction and (b)
Young’s modulus of reinforcement by modeling.
as the tensile strength, i.e. high tensile strength is generally consis-
tent with high hardness. However, Cr3 C2 particles demonstrate the
strongest effect in improving hardness of the composite over the
other ceramic particles but the SiC particles have the best effect
in tensile strength. The high tensile strength is more difficult to
achieve so that SiC particles can still be concluded as the best rein-
forcement in present study.
4. Discussion
4.1. Stress in reinforcing particles
Our modeling reveals a good agreement with experiment for
two composites but not for the other two composites. However,
modeling work here is not really intended to meet experiment but
to understand strengthening mechanism and to examine the fac-
tors that influence the strength. The present model is based on the
load sharing mechanism so that the stress in the reinforcing parti-
cles need to be calculated to reveal the effect of different types of
reinforcements theoretically as a function of the volume fraction.
The stress in particles at yield point of the composites in differ-
ent reinforcing particles is calculated by the modeling, as illustrated
in Fig. 5(a). An important fact is that the average stress in the par-
ticles predicted by modeling decreases with the increase of the
volume fraction given in Fig. 5(a), but the strength of the compos-
ites is improved gradually. Besides, there is no significant difference
in average stress in the different types of reinforcing particles.
Fig. 5(b) illustrates the average stress in particles at yield point
of composites as a function of the reinforcement Young’s modulus
by the modeling. It can be seen that the stress in particles with dif-
ferent volume fraction increases with the increase of the Young’s
7549
modulus, which implies that Young’s modulus of reinforcement
plays an important role in transferring load from matrix to the rein-
forcing particles. Moreover, stress in particles begins to decrease as
the increase of volume fraction of the reinforcement. These imply
that load transfer from matrix to reinforcing particles by mismatch
strain depends more on particle elastic features.
It is also revealed in Fig. 5 that the contribution of the four exam-
ined different reinforcements to load sharing is nearly the same
owing to their close value of elastic modulus each other. However,
Fig. 2(a) by experiment presents that the composites with different
types of reinforcements make the strength remarkably various and
the SiC/Fe has the highest strength rather than Ti(C, N)/Fe predicted
by the modeling. Therefore, the different effects of the four types of
reinforcements on composite strength are not due to the difference
of elastic properties of the reinforcements each other. And, even the
mechanical properties of the reinforcements may only play a minor
role on the strength because the stress level in the different rein-
forcements predicted by the modeling is not high enough to break
them at the yielding point of the composites. These suggest that the
effect of different reinforcements must rely on their different roles
made to the matrix and we will discuss that later by microstructure
observation.
4.2. Distribution of reinforcing particles
The tensile and yield strengths of all the four composites
demonstrate a remarkable drop at the volume fraction of 15% by
experiment shown both in Fig. 4(a) and Fig. 2(a), whereas the
yield strength of all the composites increases continuously with
the increase of the volume fraction linearly by modeling shown in
Fig. 2(b). An explanation may rely on that there are many micro-
voids in the composites at the high volume fraction, which would
result in a fracture mechanism instead of yielding to lead to a
strength abrupt drop. The micro-voids may be resulted from clus-
ters of reinforcing particles, which are reported to deteriorate the
properties of materials by serving as sites for stress localization and
crack initiation [12].
Typical microstructure of the iron matrix composites reinforced
by SiC and Ti(C, N) particles is presented in Fig. 6 to show the rein-
forcement distribution. It can be seen that the distribution of SiC
and Ti(C, N) particles varies with different reinforcement volume
fractions. The reinforcements with the low volume fractions dis-
tribute uniformly whereas in the composites with high volume
fraction of 15 vol.%, the reinforcement distribution is uneven with
numbers of clusters. The reinforcement clusters may produce local
stress intensity to induce premature local yielding and even grad-
ually result in micro-voids to lower the strength of the composites
during straining. Therefore, the strength of the composites will
increase as the increase of volume fraction to reach a maximum
value at 10% and then drops to a low value at the fraction of 15%
only at which the reinforcements form many clusters.
4.3. Effect of reinforcement on increase of matrix strength
The most significant result of present study is to reveal the effect
of different types of reinforcements on strength of iron matrix com-
posites shown in Fig. 2(a) and Fig. 4(a). It has been demonstrated
that SiC reinforcing particles have the strongest effect in improv-
ing the strength, and Cr3 C2 , TiC and Ti(C, N) come next in a series of
the effectiveness from strong to weak. The microstructure observa-
tions were carried out to find the reason because previous modeling
suggests a strengthening mechanism on the matrix.
Fig. 7 illustrates the microstructure of the iron matrix com-
posites reinforced by different reinforcing particles at the volume
fraction of 10% for example to expose details of the matrix espe-
cially. It can be seen that the TiC and the Ti(C, N) particles have no
7550 J. Li et al. / Materials Science and Engineering A 527 (2010) 7545–7551

Fig. 6. Microstructure of iron matrix composites reinforced by SiC and Ti(C, N) particles with different volume fractions, respectively: (a) 5 vol.% SiC, (b) 10 vol.% SiC, (c)
15 vol.% SiC, (d) 5 vol.% Ti(C, N), (e) 10 vol.% Ti(C, N), and (f) 15 vol.% Ti(C, N).

Fig. 7. Microstructure of the iron matrix composites reinforced by different types of reinforcing particles: (a) 10%TiC/Fe, (b) 10%Ti(C, N)/Fe, (c) 10%Cr3 C2 /Fe, and (d) 10%SiC/Fe.

reaction with the iron matrix to leave a pure Ferrite microstructure
shown in Fig. 7(a) and (b), whereas the Cr3 C2 and the SiC particles
take a slight reaction with iron to form some Pearlite in the matrix
shown in Fig. 7(c) and (d). The Pearlite + Ferrite matrix has much
higher strength than the pure Ferrite matrix [25] so that the SiC/Fe
and Cr3 C2 /Fe composites should have much higher strength than
the TiC/Fe and Ti(C, N)/Fe composites. Moreover, the SiC/Fe com-
posite in Fig. 7(d) has more Pearlite in the matrix than the Cr3 C2 /Fe
composite shown in Fig. 7(c). The SiC has higher fracture tough-
ness than the Cr3 C2 (please see Table 2). These two factors help the
SiC/Fe composite to have a higher strength over the Cr3 C2 /Fe com-
posite to become the best composites among the investigated four
composites.
5. Conclusions
(1) SiC reinforcing particles show the strongest effect on improving
strength of the iron matrix composite compared with the other
three types of Cr3 C2 , TiC and Ti(C, N) reinforcements experi-
mentally. The reason may rely on that SiC has higher fracture
 J. Li et al. / Materials Science and Engineering A 527 (2010) 7545–7551
toughness and hardness as well as a limited decomposition to
increase matrix strength.
(2) The strength of all the four composites reinforced by different
ceramic particles presents a maximum value at 10% volume
experimentally contrast the modeling result of higher strength
with higher fraction linearly. This can be explained by the
microstructure observation that the glomeration of the rein-
forcing particles happens remarkably only if the fraction is over
10 vol.% regardless to reinforcement type.
(3) The stress–strain curves by the modeling agree well with those
of the experimental TiC/Fe and Ti(C, N)/Fe composites but not
with the SiC/Fe and Cr3 C2 /Fe composites. This suggests that
elastic properties of reinforcing particles do not play impor-
tant roles and the strengthening mechanism of the composites
relies not only on load sharing of the reinforcement but also on
increasing matrix strength.
(4) Young’s modulus of all the four composites by the modeling
agrees well with experiments as a function of the volume frac-
tion. However, affectivity of different reinforcements on the
stiffness predicted by modeling goes wrong with that of exper-
iments, which implies that the stiffness of the composites is not
depended on elasticity of the reinforcements but on the bond
condition with the matrix.
Acknowledgments
Authors would like to acknowledge Nature Science Founda-
tion of China for the financial support by the grant 50771028 and
50471024, and support from Program for Changjiang Scholars and
7551
Innovative Research Team in University (IRT0713) is also acknowl-
edged.
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