Elastic Plastic Fracture Toughness Of Aluminium Alloy AA6061 Fly Ash Composites

Aluminium fly ash metal matrix composites (MMCs) find important applications in aerospace and automobiles where specific stiffness is important. Low cost fly ash and silicon carbide reinforcement are widely used in aluminium metal and matrix composite due to its low density, high young modulus and strength apart from good mechanical and chemical compatibility & thermal stability. However the MMCs often suffer from low ductility, toughness and fatigue crack growth resistance relative to the matrix alloy. Linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM) has been used to characterize the plane strain fracture toughness using various specimen geometries and notches but very few studies using EPFM are reported in literature. In the present paper the influences of weight fraction of particulate reinforcement on tensile, fracture toughness have been evaluated. The tensile strength of aluminium fly ash composites increases with the addition of fly ash reinforcement. However the fracture toughness (KIC