Numerical estimation of the thermal expansion of lamellar single domains in metal/ceramic composites

Abstract

A porous ceramic preform, the pore structure of which is created via a freeze‐casting technique, is infiltrated with a metal melt via sqeeze‐casting. The microstructure of the obtained metal/ceramic composites has lamellar domains with geometrical characteristics which are dependent on the manufacturing parameters. The aim of our study is to predict the coefficients of thermal expansion of single domains of parallel Al 2 O 3 platelets embedded in Al. For this purpose, a homogenization procedure was employed for microstructure based finite element and micromechanical modeling. (© 2010 Wiley‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)