Damage accumulation and hysteretic behavior of MAX phase materials

The compressive response of fully dense and 10 vol% porous Ti2AlC MAX phase materials subjected to quasi-static uniaxial and cyclic loading including their repeatable hysteretic behavior is presented. Damage accumulation in the form of kink bands and microcracking is characterized using ultrasonics and scanning electron microscopy under different levels of compressive loading. The observations and measurements are correlated quantitatively using a model based on friction between the crack faces, which is the main dissipation process. The model is shown to capture the hysteretic behavior of Ti2AlC MAX phase and quantitatively reproduce the experimentally measured stress–strain curves.