Estimation of Steady-State Creep Behavior of Al2O3/YAG Eutectic Composite by Image-Based Finite Element Analysis

Abstract

Al2O3/YAG eutectic composite has been developed for a structural material used in ultra high temperature environments over 1500°C such as a gasturbine. Creep behavior is one of the important material properties in ultra high temperature materials. In the present study, we propose an image-based finite element analysis for estimating the steady state creep behavior of the Al2O3/YAG eutectic composite. In the image-based finite element analysis, microstructure of the material taken by a SEM is modeled into a finite element mesh using a software for image process. Then finite element creep analyses are carried out to obtain the steady state creep behavior of the Al2O3/YAG eutectic composite by using steady state creep constitutive equations for both Al2O3 single crystal and YAG single crystal. The results of steady state creep behavior obtained from the image-based finite element analysis are compared with the experimental results. It is found that the steady state creep behavior of the Al2O3/YAG eutectic composite is accurately estimated by the image-based finite element analysis. Furthermore, we examine the effect of volume fractions of the constituents on the steady state creep behavior of the Al2O3/YAG eutectic composite.