ACOUSTIC-ELASTIC WAVE VELOCITIES IN METAL-MATRIX COMPOSITES

THE ACOUSTOELASTIC RESPONSE OF COMPOSITES IS EXPECTED TO DEPEND ON THE ACOUSTOELASTIC PROPERTIES OF THE PHASES AS WELL AS THE RESIDUAL AND APPLIED STRESSES IN EACH PHASE OF THE COMPOSITE. THE PROPOSED RESEARCH AIMS AT OBTAINING ANALYTICAL RELATIONSHIPS OF THIS DEPENDENCE IN TWO PHASE MEDIA WITH COMPARATIVELY LARGE VOLUME FRACTIONS OF REINFORCEMENTS. MATHEMATICAL EXPERIMENTS WILL BE CONDUCTED TO DETERMINE THE SIGNIFICANCE OF VARIOUS MATERIAL AND PROCESSING PARAMETERS. IN ADDITION CORRELATION WITH AVAILABLE EXPERIMENTAL DATA WILL BE ATTEMPTED TO DETERMINE THE FEASIBILITY OF THE APPROACH ESPECIALLY FOR ITS APPLICATION TO THE INVERSE PROBLEM, I.E. DETERMINATION OF RESIDUAL STRESSES IN EACH PHASE. SPECIAL EMPHASIS WILL BE PLACED ON CHARACTERIZING THE THERMAL STRAIN BEHAVIOR OF GRAPHITE FIBER REINFORCED METAL MATRIX LAMINATES SUBJECTED TO THERMAL CYCLES. APPLICATION TO PRACTICAL PROBLEMS OF COMPOSITE COMPONENTS WITH MORE COMPLEX ARRANGEMENT OF REINFORCEMENTS IS PROPOSED FOR THE FOLLOWING PHASES OF RESEARCH.