The role of heterogeneity on the flow and fracture of two-phase materials

The mechanical behavior of two-phase alloys containing a high volume fraction of hard particles is sensitive to effects such as particle clustering and damage. Models for such behavior are necessarily complex. However, recent progress is such that global effects (e.g. the decrease of work hardening capacity due to continuum processes during compressive flow) can be predicted with reasonable accuracy. Parameters involving localized processes such as ductility are more difficult to predict. In this paper we review and extend models for the role of particle clustering and damage (in the form of particle cracking) on deformation. Further understanding of this problem will rely on a combination of critical experiments on materials with well controlled microstructures, and on models which synthesize the results of detailed FEM calculations and large scale continuum mechanics approaches.