Anomalous size effect in thermal residual stresses in pressure sintered alumina-chromium composites

This paper explores an anomalous size effect in thermal residual stresses occurring in the alumina matrix of Al2O3/Cr sintered composite upon varying the particle size of the chromium reinforcement. When a coarse chromium powder (45 µm mean particle size) is used the average residual stress in the alumina phase after cooling is compressive in accordance with the classical Eshelby solution. However, in the case of a fine chromium (5 µm mean particle size) it switches to tension. This effect, detected by photoluminescence piezospectroscopy, is also confirmed by X-ray and neutron diffraction experiments. As the classical micromechanics models are incapable to capture it, a finite element model is developed with the actual composite microstructure being reconstructed from the microtomography images. It is shown by numerical simulations that the anomalous size effect is associated with the complex microstructure of the composite fabricated with the fine chromium powder. It is also pointed out that the temperature dependence of the coefficients of thermal expansion of the matrix and the reinforcement affects the residual stress levels.