Extension of combined self-consistent and Mori-Tanaka approach to evaluation of elastoplastic property of particulate composites

The combined self-consistent and Mori-Tanaka approach proposed for the evaluation of the effective elastic property of particulate composites is extended to evaluate the effective elastoplastic property of particulate composites. Suppose there are sufficient identical particle inclusions with total volume fraction c in a representative volume element (RVE) of a particulate composite, these inclusions are separated into two groups, with volume fractions (1 – λ−1)c and c/λ over the RVE, respectively. We assume that the first group of inclusions has already been embedded in the original matrix to form a fictitious matrix, and the RVE of the composite consists of the fictitious matrix and the second group of particle inclusions. The property of the fictitious matrix is determined by the conventional self-consistent scheme, while the effective elastoplastic property of the composite is determined by the conventional Mori-Tanaka scheme. Analysis shows that, the conventional Mori-Tanaka scheme and self-consistent scheme can be obtained as the two limit cases of the extended approach as λ = 1 and λ = ∞, respectively. The constitutive behavior of the inclusions in either Group I or Group II is identical, indicating the consistency in the description of the constitutive behavior in the two steps. Furthermore, the effective elastoplastic behavior of some typical particulate composites is analyzed, and the satisfactory agreement between the computational and experimental results demonstrates the validity of the extended approach. The introduced λ can serve reasonably as a parameter, which is related to the actual property of composites and can be identified by experiments, for a more accurate evaluation of the effective elastoplastic property of particulate composites.