Mechanics of Materials 38 (2006) 873–883

www.elsevier.com/locate/mechmat

Computational micromechanics of composites:

The effect of particle spatial distribution
Javier Segurado, Javier LLorca *

Department of Materials Science, Polytechnic University of Madrid, E.T.S. de Ingenieros de Caminos, 28040 Madrid, Spain

Received 10 December 2004; received in revised form 15 February 2005

Abstract

The effect of the reinforcement spatial distribution on the tensile deformation was investigated in a sphere-reinforced
ductile-matrix composite through the finite element simulation of a representative volume element of the material. Com-
posites with four different random and isotropic particle spatial distributions were considered: a homogeneous one and
three heterogeneous ones, where the particles were clustered in spherical regions with increasing local reinforcement vol-
ume fractions. The inhomogeneities in the particle spatial distribution had a negligible influence on the effective composite
properties in the elastic and plastic regimes. The average stresses borne by the particles were, however, higher in the clus-
tered microstructures and marked stress concentrations were found between particles very close to each other along the
loading direction. This affected the damage: the probability of fracture of the spherical reinforcements in the clustered
materials was 3–6 times higher than in the homogeneous one, and decohesion at the particle/matrix interface (which
was simulated by interface elements around the particle surfaces) occurred earlier and grew faster in the inhomogeneous
composites, leading to a significant reduction in the hardening rate and ductility. These simulations showed that damage
(either by particle or interface decohesion) was preferentially nucleated within the clusters between particles very close to
each other and oriented along the loading axis within a conic angle of ±45°, in excellent agreement with the experimental
observations reported in the literature.
Ó 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Micromechanical modeling; Particle-reinforced composites; Clustering; Damage; Interface decohesion

1. Introduction strategies may be used. On the one hand, homogeni-

Micromechanics of composites is aimed at deter-
mining the macroscopic (or effective) composite
properties through models which incorporate
the microstructural details. Two different analysis
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +34 913365375; fax: +34
915437845.
E-mail address: jllorca@mater.upm.es (J. LLorca).
zation techniques are applied to finding the appro-
priate homogenized (or averaged) equations which
describe the mechanical deformation of a represen-
tative volume element (RVE) of the composite
which is much larger than the heterogeneities in the
microstructure. Various averaging theorems—
which normally assume a random and homogeneous
reinforcement distribution—provide the volume-
averaged stress and strain fields in each phase

0167-6636/$ - see front matter Ó 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.mechmat.2005.06.026
874 J. Segurado, J. LLorca / Mechanics of Materials 38 (2006) 873–883
(Nemat-Nasser and Hori, 1999; Torquato, 2001).
On the other hand, periodic microfield approaches
presume that the reinforcements are placed at pre-
scribed (regular) locations in space, and determine
the macroscopic properties from the numerical or
analytical simulation of the mechanical response
of a unit cell with symmetric (or antisymmetric)
boundary conditions which respect the microstruc-
tural symmetries (Böhm, 2004).
Both approaches have advantages and limita-
tions. Homogenization techniques provide analytical
or semi-analytical constitutive equations in linear
and non-linear regimes, which can be readily used
as input for the composite behavior in structural
analysis codes. However, they are not well suited to
account for the effect of damage because damage is
triggered by the extremal values and they supply
information only on the average ones. In addition,
damage leads to the rapid localization of the defor-
mation, and the influence of this phenomenon on
the macroscopic properties cannot be captured easily
with techniques which relay in averaging theorems.
Microfield approaches can obtain the complex stress
and strain fields generated in the matrix and rein-
forcements upon deformation, and so they overcome
the first limitation of homogenization techniques
to model damage. Nevertheless, the periodicity
imposed by the model assumptions means that dam-
age nucleates and grows simultaneously throughout
the microstructure, in opposition to the experimental
data which show that damage is initially confined in
small regions of the material and spreads progres-
sively with deformation (LLorca and González,
1998). In fact, it is well established experimentally
that damage nucleation in polymer- and metal–
matrix composites occurs in regions of the micro-
structure that contain high local volume fraction of
reinforcements (Cantwell and Roulin-Moloney,
1989; Lewandowski et al., 1989; Poza and LLorca,
1996). Thus, the accurate simulation of deformation
and damage in composites requires new simulation
techniques which can include inhomogeneous rein-
forcement distributions.
The limitations of the classic micromechanical
model for composites have been overcome by a
new simulation approach based on the finite ele-
ment simulation of a three-dimensional RVE con-
taining several dozens of reinforcements randomly
distributed. Various studies have demonstrated the
capabilities of this method to capture with great
accuracy the effective properties of particle-rein-
forced composites subjected to elastic (Gusev,
1997; Michel et al., 1999; Segurado and LLorca,
2002) and elasto-plastic deformation (Böhm and
Han, 2001; Segurado et al., 2003; González et al.,
2004), and more recent results have explored the
development of damage by matrix void growth
(LLorca and Segurado, 2004) and particle fracture
(Böhm et al., 2004) in RVEs with homogeneous par-
ticle distributions. In this paper, we extend the pre-
vious results obtained with this technique to study
systematically the effect of inhomogeneous particle
distributions on the elastic, elasto-plastic and
elasto-plastic deformation with damage (particle
fracture or interface decohesion) of a model
composite made up of a random and isotropic dis-
persion of ceramic spheres embedded in an elasto-
plastic continuous matrix.
2. Composite microstructure and finite element model
The RVE for the numerical simulations was a
cubic cell containing a random and isotropic disper-
sion of spherical particles. The average sphere
volume fraction in the RVE, n, was 15% in all the
simulations presented in this paper. RVEs with four
different kinds of random microstructures were cre-
ated. In the first one, 30 particles generated with the
random sequential adsorption algorithm (Segurado
and LLorca, 2002; Rintoul and Torquato, 1997)
were homogeneously distributed throughout the
RVE. The other three microstructures, with increas-
ing inhomogeneity levels, were formed by a random
and homogeneous dispersion of spherical regions
(clusters). The spherical particles were concentrated
around the center of each cluster and the inhomoge-
neity of the microstructures was defined by the
sphere volume fraction in the cluster regions,
ncl = 20%, 30%, and 40%. Each cluster was made
up of seven spheres and there were seven clusters
in each RVE, a total of 49 particles. It should be
noted that the RVE microstructure was periodic
along the three cube axes to apply periodic bound-
ary conditions to the cube faces, because the effec-
tive behavior derived under these conditions for a
finite RVE is always closer to that of an infinite
RVE than those obtained under imposed forces or
displacements. Two inhomogeneous particle disper-
sions corresponding to ncl = 20% and 40% are
shown in Fig. 1(a) and (b), respectively. Highly
inhomogeneous distributions present particle-rich
and particle-free regions in the microstructure
(Fig. 1(b)) as opposed to the homogeneous
distributions.
 J. Segurado, J. LLorca / Mechanics of Materials 38 (2006) 873–883
Fig. 1. Lateral view of the particle spatial distribution in the
cubic RVEs. Inhomogeneous distribution with (a) ncl = 0.20 and
(b) ncl = 0.40. Each RVE contains seven clusters with seven
spheres and one of the clusters has been shaded for clarity. Notice
that the microstructure is periodic and that the particles
intersecting a cube face also appear at the opposite face.
Cubic cells for the finite element simulations were
created from these sphere distributions: the particles
intersecting the cube faces were split into an appro-
priate number of parts and copied on the opposite
sides of the cube. Three faces of the cube were
meshed with quadratic triangles, and the meshes
were copied on the opposite sides. The model
volume (matrix and spheres) was meshed using
modified 10-node tetrahedra (C3D10M in Abaqus,
2004) with integration at four Gauss points and
875
hourglass control, which exhibit minimal volumetric
locking during plastic straining. Approximately 500
elements were used to represent each sphere, ensur-
ing that the sphere volume fraction in the discretized
models was within 0.1% of the theoretical value. In
addition, an adaptative meshing technique was used
to reduce the element size in the matrix within the
cluster zone, coarsening the mesh in the rest of the
cell. Special care was taken to minimize the number
of distorted elements to a few (<10) in each model
and to include at least two tetrahedra through the
matrix thickness between neighbor particles closely
packed in the clusters. A typical model of the clus-
tered microstructures had 100,000 elements and
150,000 nodes and it was checked that the discreti-
zation of the cubic cells was fine enough to give
accurate results from the numerical viewpoint
(Segurado et al., 2003).
The RVE mechanical response in uniaxial ten-
sion along one of the cube axes was computed by
the finite element method using periodic boundary
conditions on the cube faces. Simulations were
carried out with Abaqus/Standard (Abaqus, 2004)
within the framework of the small displacements
theory. The spherical particles behaved as elastic,
isotropic solids characterized by their elastic modu-
lus Ep = 400 GPa and PoissonÕs ratio mp = 0.20. The
matrix was modeled as an isotropically hardening
elastic plastic solid following the incremental (J2)
theory of plasticity, and the total matrix strain
was given by the sum of the elastic and plastic strain
components. The matrix elastic constants were
Em = 70 GPa and mm = 0.30, and the isotropic
matrix hardening during plastic deformation was
given by the expression
nm
req p
m ¼ Am ½m  ð1Þ
where req
m is the Von Mises equivalent stress and pm
stands for accumulated plastic strain. The constants
Am = 400 MPa and nm = 0.15 are typical of an Al
alloy matrix reinforced with ceramic particles. More
details of the microstructure generation, the finite
element discretization and simulation, and the
boundary conditions can be found in Segurado
and LLorca (2002) and Segurado et al. (2002).
3. Results
3.1. Elastic behavior
Four different cubic RVEs were generated and
analyzed for the homogeneous microstructure
876 J. Segurado, J. LLorca / Mechanics of Materials 38 (2006) 873–883
1.05
3D numerical simulation
of RVE
Self-consistent method
1.04
Third order approximation
Mori-Tanaka method
1.03
E / Ehom
1.02
1.01
1 show any effect of clustering on the elastic properties
0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7
ξcl
Fig. 2. Average elastic modulus of composites, E, with different
particle spatial distributions (normalized by the modulus of the
homogeneous particle distribution, Ehom) as a function of the
degree of clustering represented by the local particle volume
fraction in the clusters, ncl. The average results from the
numerical simulations of the 3D RVEs are plotted together with
those obtained from the self-consistent method, TorquatoÕs third
order approximation and the Mori–Tanaka method.
(ncl = n = 0.15) and another four for each of the
three inhomogeneous microstructures with ncl =
0.20, 0.30 and 0.40. They were subjected to uniaxial
tension along the three perpendicular cube axes,
leading to 12 values of the elastic modulus for each
composite. The average value of the elastic modulus
E (normalized by the average one of the composite
with a statistically homogeneous sphere distribution,
Ehom) is plotted in Fig. 2 as a function of the degree
of clustering represented by ncl. Drugan and Willis
(1996) showed that a RVE containing 49 spheres
was large enough to simulate the macroscopic com-
posite behavior in the elastic regime and the error
bars in the figure support this conclusion as the dis-
persion in the elastic modulus among different RVEs
of the same microstructure was negligible. These
results indicate that the influence of the inhomoge-
neous particle distribution on the elastic properties
was negligible (the maximum difference was below
1%) and that a maximum was attained when the
local volume fraction in the cluster was approxi-
mately 30%. The results obtained using various
homogenization methods are also plotted for com-
parison. They were computed using a double
homogenization technique. Firstly, the elastic stiff-
ness tensor of the cluster region Lcl was obtained
using one of the homogenization methods (Mori
and Tanaka, 1973; Benveniste, 1987; self-consistent,
Christensen and Lo, 1979; and TorquatoÕs third
order approximation, Torquato, 1998) assuming
that the cluster region behaves as a composite rein-
forced with a volume fraction ncl of spheres. The
inhomogeneous composite was represented by a ran-
dom and homogeneous distribution of clustered
regions occupying a volume fraction n/ncl and the
elastic stiffness tensor was computed using again
the corresponding homogenization method.
While the results of the double-homogenization
technique based on Mori–TanakaÕs model did not
(as is proved elsewhere, Segurado and LLorca,
2005a), those based on TorquatoÕs model predicted
the same influence of clustering on the elastic modu-
lus as the numerical simulations, although the max-
imum was attained at higher levels of inhomogeneity
in the microstructure (ncl  55%). The self-consistent
approximation also led to a maximum for the same
degree of inhomogeneity but its value was far higher.
This is very likely a consequence of the self-consis-
tent method, which provides very stiff predictions
for the effective properties when the sphere volume
fraction is very high, overestimating Lcl, and hence
the effect of clustering on the composite response.
On the contrary, TorquatoÕs third order approxima-
tion is known to be the most accurate homogeniza-
tion technique to predict the elastic properties of
this class of composites up to volume fractions
of 50% (Segurado and LLorca, 2002). The origin
of the differences between the numerical simulation
and the homogenization models in the clustering
level which led to the maximum stiffness is not
known, but it may be related to the small number
of spheres (only 7) in each cluster of the RVE.
Although the distance between the spheres in the
cluster is minimum (Segurado et al., 2003), the local
volume fraction ncl is limited to 40% due to the num-
ber spheres. Higher local volume fractions (close to
the theoretical limit of 64%) could be attained by
increasing the number of spheres within the cluster
while the average minimum distance was held
constant, and this could modify the position of the
maximum for the numerical simulations in Fig. 2.
3.2. Elasto-plastic behavior
The simulations presented in the previous para-
graphs were extended into the elasto-plastic regime.
 J. Segurado, J. LLorca / Mechanics of Materials 38 (2006) 873–883 877

500

particles
400
σ eq, σpeq (MPa)

300

composite
200
ξcl = 0.40
ξcl = 0.30
100 ξcl = 0.20
ξcl = ξ = 0.15

0
0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05
Strain

Fig. 3. Evolution of the average Von Mises equivalent stress in

the composite, r eq , (i.e. the applied stress) and of the average
eq
equivalent stress in the particles, r p , as a function of the applied
strain in composites with homogeneous (ncl = 0.15) and inhomo-
geneous particle distributions (ncl = 0.20, 0.30 and 0.40).
Twelve stress–strain curves in tension (four RVEs
deformed along the three perpendicular cube axes)
were computed for each microstructure; they
showed very limited scatter when plastic deforma-
tion became dominant. The maximum difference in
stresses between two RVEs of the same microstruc-
ture was small (around 4% at a tensile strain of 0.05)
and the standard deviation of the stress was always
below 1.3%. The average stress–strain curves of the
four microstructures are plotted in Fig. 3 (true stres-
ses and logarithmic strains are used throughout the
paper1) and they show that, as in the elastic regime,
the composite with ncl = 0.30 presented the stiffest
effective behavior, although the overall behavior of
composites with homogeneous and heterogeneous
reinforcement distributions was very similar, the
maximum difference in stresses being 2%. In addi-
tion, the equivalent stress in each sphere, r eq
p was
computed from the volume-averaged stress tensor
in each sphere rp , which is given by
P tensile stresses do not exceed 0.6 GPa. From the
ri V i
p ¼ Pi
r ð2Þ
iV i
1
The true stress along the loading axis was computed as the
total force divided by the actual cross-section. The corresponding
logarithmic strain was computed from the displacement along the
same axis between paired nodes in opposite surfaces, see
Segurado et al. (2003) for details.
Fig. 4. Contour plot of the maximum tensile stress in the
spherical reinforcements of the composite with ncl = 0.40. The
applied strain in the arrow direction was 5%. Notice the stress
concentrations in the spheres close to each other and oriented
along the loading axis.
where ri and Vi stand, respectively, for the stress
tensor and the volume associated with Gauss point
i in the sphere. The average values of r eq
p for the
spheres in each microstructure are also plotted in
Fig. 3 as a function of the applied strain. They show
greater differences between the homogeneous and
the inhomogeneous materials, an indication that
the average stresses in the particle do increase with
clustering although the effective properties are not
significantly modified by the particle spatial distri-
bution (as in the elastic regime). Moreover, the con-
tour plot of the maximum principal stresses in the
spheres (Fig. 4) show that the stresses within the
spheres are highly inhomogeneous. Maximum ten-
sile stresses (in excess of 1 GPa) are found in the
spheres when they are very close to each other and
oriented along the loading axis, while isolated
spheres bear much lower loads and the maximum
practical viewpoint, these results point out that—
in the absence of damage—particle clustering
does not determine the composite behavior. On
the other hand, the local values of stress and strains
are higher in the inhomogeneous microstructures
and this is likely to influence the onset and propaga-
tion of damage. This is assessed in the following
sections.
878 J. Segurado, J. LLorca / Mechanics of Materials 38 (2006) 873–883

3.3. Damage by particle cracking 0.12

Particle fracture is an important damage mecha-

nism in particle-reinforced composites (LLorca and

Sphere fracture probability

0.09 m=5
González, 1998; González and LLorca, 2000), and
the influence of the particle spatial distribution on σ0 = 1.5 GPa
the onset of damage can be studied from the magni- σ0 = 2.0 GPa
tude of the stress fields at the local level provided by 0.06
the finite element simulations of the RVE. It is well
established that the strength of brittle particles fol-
lows the Weibull statistics (LLorca et al., 1993;
Lewis and Withers, 1995; LLorca, 1995) and thus 0.03
the fracture probability, Fi, of a region of volume
Vi subjected to a constant stress field given by the
tensor ri is expressed by
  m  0
V i rIi 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4
F i ¼ 1  exp  ð3Þ (a) ξcl
V 0 r0
where rIi is the maximum principal stress in the re- 0.12
gion, m and r0 stand, respectively, for the Weibull σ0 = 2.0 GPa
modulus and the characteristic strength of the m=3
ceramic material, and V0 is an arbitrary reference m=5
Sphere fracture probability

volume. In our models, each sphere can be consid- 0.09 m=7

ered an aggregate of regions of volume Vi, which
correspond to the volume associated to the Gauss
points in the finite element discretization. Each re- 0.06
gion is subjected to a stress field ri, and V0 is the
sphere volume. The brittle sphere will break when-
ever any of the small regions fails, so the sphere
fracture probability is given by 0.03

Y
N   m 
V i rIi
F ¼1 exp 
i¼1
V 0 r0
rIi
where is the maximum principal stress in the vol-
ume i. Neglecting the stress redistribution associated
with the fracture of spheres, F provides an estimate
for the fraction of broken spheres as a function of
the stresses in the spheres, which can be obtained
from the finite element simulations of the RVE.
They are plotted in Fig. 5 for the composites with
homogeneous and inhomogeneous particle distribu-
tions when the applied tensile strain was 5%. The
results in Fig. 5(a) show the influence of the Weibull
modulus m and those in Fig. 5(b) illustrate the effect
of the characteristic strength r0. Both results point
out that even small amounts of clustering (ncl =
0.20) led to a significant increase in the sphere frac-
ture probability and thus demonstrated the negative
effects of inhomogeneous particle distributions on
the composite behavior. The rapid fracture of the
spheres in the materials with a clustered microstruc-
ð4Þ
0
0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4
ξcl
(b)
Fig. 5. Estimations of the fraction of broken spheres in
composites with different particle spatial distributions as a
function of the degree of clustering represented by the local
particle volume fraction in the clusters, ncl. (a) m = 5 (b)
r0 = 2.0 GPa. The applied strain was 5%.
ture greatly reduces the flow stress of the composite,
eliminating the slight strength increment provided
by the inhomogeneous reinforcement distribution.
In addition, this leads to a marked drop in the strain
hardening capacity, and the onset of plastic instabil-
ity (which controls the tensile ductility of the com-
posites, see LLorca and González, 1998) occurs at
very low strains. These numerical predictions have
been confirmed recently by experimental results on
Al-based composites with controlled particle spatial
 J. Segurado, J. LLorca / Mechanics of Materials 38 (2006) 873–883
distribution (Prasad et al., 2002; Spowart et al.,
2003): composites with homogeneous particle distri-
butions presented much larger ductility and lower
damage rates by particle fracture. The influence of
particle strength (r0) on damage, shown in
Fig. 5(b), follows the expected trends with the
sphere fracture probability increasing rapidly as r0
decreases. The effect of the Weibull modulus de-
picted in Fig. 5(a) is more complex, as it depends
on the presence of stress concentrations in the
spheres (Fig. 4): no definitive conclusions can be
drawn. However, damage seems to be maximum
in (or around) ncl  0.3–0.4, and this follows the
trends observed in the elastic and plastic regime,
which also showed a maximum influence of the
inhomogeneous particle distribution on the effective
properties in composites with this degree of
clustering.
3.4. Damage by interface decohesion
Interface decohesion is another well-known dam-
age mechanism in particle-reinforced composites
(Whitehouse and Clyne, 1993; Babout et al., 2004).
It was incorporated in the numerical simulations of
the cubic RVE by including a three-dimensional
interface element at the sphere surfaces. The element
formulation is detailed elsewhere (Segurado and
LLorca, 2004) and need not be repeated here. Inter-
face decohesion was simulated through a cohesive
crack model, where the normal and tangential stress
transferred by the interface were derived from a
potential U given by
Z k
UðDun ; Dut1 ; Dut2 Þ ¼ Duc rðk0 Þ dk0 ð5Þ
0 interface decohesion was studied in the two limiting
where Dun, Dut1 and Dut2 stand for the normal and
tangential relative displacements between the crack
faces and Duc is the critical normal (or tangential)
displacement between the crack faces at which all
interaction vanishes. k is the generalized crack open-
ing displacement expressed as
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
2  2 
Dun Dut1
k¼ þ þ
Duc Duc
The function r(k) (which stands for the normal
stress transferred through the crack in the absence
of tangential displacements) is plotted in Fig. 6.
The interface properties are given by the interfacial
strength, tc, and the fracture energy, Cin, which is
the area enclosed under the r(k) function
879
1
0.8
σ (λ) / t c
0.6
Ki
0.4
0.2
1
0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
λ
Fig. 6. Function r(k). Notice the degradation of the element
stiffness once the maximum interfacial strength has been reached.
1
Cin ¼ tc Duc . ð7Þ
2
The cohesive model includes the progressive deg-
radation of the interface stiffness and strength once
the maximum interfacial strength has been reached,
as indicated in the unloading and reloading paths of
Fig. 6. The initial stiffness Ki is a numerical param-
eter that is adjusted to ensure that the presence of
the interface elements does not perturb the stress
fields around the spherical particles in the absence
of damage.
The influence of the particle spatial distribution
on the mechanical behavior of composites including
cases of homogeneous and highly clustered micro-
structures. The cubic RVEs of the homogeneous
composite contained 35 spherical particles while
the inhomogeneous ones were formed by seven
spherical clusters with five spheres each. The RVE
size was a compromise between the minimum one
necessary to obtain accurate results during elasto-
2ffi plastic deformation of sphere-reinforced composites
Dut2
. ð6Þ (Segurado et al., 2003) and the maximum imposed
Duc
by the computing power available. The reduced
scatter among the simulations of different cubic cells
with the same microstructure (either homogeneous
or clustered) showed a posteriori that the size
selected was adequate. The average sphere volume
fraction was n = 0.15, while ncl = 0.37. The interface
fracture energy Cin was 400 J/m2, and the interface
880 J. Segurado, J. LLorca / Mechanics of Materials 38 (2006) 873–883

strength tc was assumed to vary from particle to
particle according to
tc ¼ tc0 ð lnð1  N ÞÞ0:2
where 0 6 N 6 1 is a randomly generated number
and tc0 = 0.5 GPa. These values are sensible for Al
alloys reinforced with brittle ceramic particles
(Evans et al., 1999; Babout et al., 2004).
Four tensile stress–strain curves were computed
for each material (2 RVEs deformed along two
perpendicular cube axes) and they are plotted in
Fig. 7(a) and (b) for the homogeneous and clustered
350
300
250
Stress (MPa)
materials, respectively. The differences between the
curves of the same microstructure and failure mech-
anism (either none or interface decohesion) showed
ð8Þ
very little scatter, so the size of the RVEs was large
enough to reproduce accurately the effective com-
posite properties. The figures show the part played
by the particle spatial distribution in the devel-
opment of damage by interface decohesion. Homo-
geneous microstructures (Fig. 7(a)) showed a
minimum reduction in the strain hardening capacity
as a result of the progressive interface fracture but
the effects of damage were evident in the very early
stages of the deformation in the clustered micro-
structure, Fig. 7(b), and led to a significant reduc-
tion of the flow stress (11% at a far-field strain
of 8%, while the decrease was only of 4% in the
homogeneous composite). In fact, the slight harden-
ing effect of clustering in the absence of damage
(Fig. 3) was reversed by the stress relaxation trig-
gered by damage, and the flow stress of the inhomo-

200
geneous microstructure was lower than that of the
150
homogeneous one. It should be noted that the
reduction in composite strain hardening, although
not dramatic, precipitates the onset of plastic insta-
100 Homogeneous, ξ = 0.15
bility, which controls the strain-to-failure of these
No damage ductile-matrix composites (LLorca and González,
50
Interface decohesion 1998; Segurado and LLorca, 2005b). Thus, the drop
in ductility due to damage by interface decohesion
0 was very large: from  14% in the undamaged com-
0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.07
(a) Strain
posites to 7.5 ± 0.2% in the homogeneous and
6.6 ± 0.5% in the clustered materials.
350 The numerical simulations of the RVE also pro-
vided information about the critical locations at
300

250
Stress (MPa)

200

150
Clustered
100 ξ = 0.15, ξcl = 0.37

No damage
50
Interface decohesion

0
0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.07
(b) Strain Fig. 8. Deformed shape of the RVE face of a clustered material
(ncl = 0.37). The applied strain was 7.8% along the horizontal
Fig. 7. Effect of interface decohesion on the tensile stress–strain direction. The arrows indicate the locations of interface decohe-
curves. (a) Homogeneous particle distribution and (b) inhomo- sion. The detail of decohesion in one particle is shown in the right
geneous particle distribution. inset.
 J. Segurado, J. LLorca / Mechanics of Materials 38 (2006) 873–883 881

which damage developed earlier during deforma-
tion. This is shown in Fig. 8, where the deformed
shape of a cube face of an RVE corresponding to
the clustered microstructure is shown for an axial
strain of 7.8%. Decohesion began at the poles of
the spherical particles and grew along the interface,
although no complete decohesions were observed.
Decohesion was localized between particles very
close to each other and oriented along the loading
axis within a conic angle of ±45°. Large stress con-
centrations are generated at the interface by this
600
500
400
σpeq (MPa)
particle spatial distribution, and they are relieved
by interfacial fracture. These patterns follow exper-
imental observations in the literature (Whitehouse
and Clyne, 1993; Babout et al., 2004).
The main consequences of interface fracture were
a reduction in the average stress carried by the
spherical reinforcements and an increment in the
volumetric strain as a result of the void formation.
These two variables can be easily computed from
the numerical simulations and their average values
are plotted in Fig. 9(a) and (b). The evolution of
eq
r p with the applied strain in Fig. 9(a) shows very
clearly the contrasting effect of particle clustering
and damage on the particle stresses. Clustering
without damage leads to an increase in the stress
carried by the particles and improves the composite
flow stress. Interface decohesion reduced the aver-
age stress in the particles, and eventually the load
borne by the reinforcements reached a maximum
and began to decrease. The reduction in r eq
p was

300 more pronounced in the clustered material and, as

a result, the average stress in the spherical reinforce-
200 ments was higher in the homogeneous material than
in the inhomogeneous if damage occurs. The onset
Homogeneous, no damage and evolution of damage is well described by the
100 Homogeneous, interface decohesion
Clustered, no damage
volumetric strain in Fig. 9(b), which shows that
Clustered, interface decohesion interface decohesion not only began earlier in the
0 clustered material but grew more rapidly, leading
0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.07
(a) Strain

0.005
90

Homogeneous
0.004 Clustered
85
Elastic modulus (GPa)
Volumetric strain

0.003
80

0.002

75

0.001

70 Homogeneous, ξ = 0.15
0 Clustered, ξ = 0.15, ξcl = 0.37
0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.07
(b) Strain 65
0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.07
Fig. 9. (a) Evolution of the volume-averaged equivalent stress in Strain
the spherical reinforcements, r eq
p , as a function of the applied
tensile strain. (b) Evolution of the volumetric strain as a function Fig. 10. Evolution of the composite elastic modulus as a function
of the applied tensile strain. of the applied tensile strain.
882 J. Segurado, J. LLorca / Mechanics of Materials 38 (2006) 873–883
to the reduction in the effective properties depicted
in Fig. 7.
Finally, the reduction in the interface stiffness
due to damage led to a progressive decline in the
composite elastic modulus, which was measured
by carrying out periodic unloads during the simula-
tion of the tensile deformation. The variation of the
average elastic modulus was computed from the
four simulations carried out in each microstructure
and the results are plotted in Fig. 10 for the dam-
aged composites with homogeneous and clustered
microstructures. The inhomogeneous composite
was slightly stiffer at the beginning of the deforma-
tion but the higher damage rates reversed the situa-
tion very rapidly, showing again the higher damage
rates in the clustered microstructure.
4. Conclusions
The effect of the reinforcement spatial distribu-
tion on the mechanical behavior was studied in a
model composite material made up of an elasto-plas-
tic matrix reinforced with 15 vol.% of elastic, stiff
spherical particles. The analyses were carried out
within the framework of computational microme-
chanics, and the composite behavior was obtained
from the finite element simulations of cubic RVEs
containing several dozens of particles with periodic
boundary conditions. Composites with four different
random and isotropic particle spatial distributions
were considered: a homogeneous one and three het-
erogeneous, where the particles were clustered in
spherical regions with increasing local reinforcement
volume fractions ncl = 20%, 30% and 40%. It was
found that the particle spatial distribution had a very
weak effect on the effective properties in the elastic
and plastic regimes. Maximum values of the stiffness
and strain hardening rates were found in the com-
posites with an intermediate degree of clustering
(ncl = 30%) but the differences with the homoge-
neous one were almost negligible. However, the local
stresses in the spherical reinforcements were notably
higher in the clustered microstructures, and this con-
siderably affected damage.
A damage indicator of particle fracture was cre-
ated using the local values of the maximum princi-
pal stress in the spherical reinforcements and the
Weibull model for fracture of brittle materials. It
was found the even small amounts of inhomogene-
ity in the particle spatial distribution increased
significantly the particle fracture probability, which
in very inhomogeneous microstructures (ncl = 30%
and 40%) was 3–6 times higher than in the homoge-
neous one. Damage by particle/matrix decohesion
was simulated by introducing interface elements at
the sphere surfaces. Damage by decohesion led to
an important degradation of the composite strain
hardening capacity and stiffness, which was more
pronounced in the inhomogeneous microstructures,
where damage was nucleated earlier and progressed
at higher rates, and induced a significant reduction
of the strain at the onset of plastic instability, which
controls the tensile ductility. These simulations
showed that damage (either by particle or interface
decohesion) was preferentially nucleated between
particles very close to each other and oriented along
the loading axis within a conic angle of ±45°, in
agreement with the experimental patterns of inter-
face decohesion.
Acknowledgments
The financial support from the Spanish Ministry
of Education and Science through grants MAT
2003-5202-C02 and MAT 10589E is gratefully
acknowledged.
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