Micromechanical modeling for the thermo-elasto-plastic behavior of functionally graded composites

By gradually changing the compositions, functionally graded materials (FGMs) are constructed and possess comprehensive performance. In this paper, based on the micromechanics, the thermo-elasto-plastic behaviors of FGMs are studied with consideration of the pairwise particle interaction, where the graded microstructures of the FGMs are represented by employing a particular representative volume element (RVE). Based on the assumption that the matrix dominates the plastic behavior of the FGMs while the particles stay in their linearly elastic state, the von-Mises yield function is extended to solve FGMs problems. By employing the backward Euler’s method, the overall effective thermo-elasto-plastic behavior of FGMs can be numerically obtained. When eliminating the plastic or thermal effect, the proposed model can be downgraded to the thermoelastic model or the elastoplastic model of the FGMs, respectively. In addition, the proposed model is validated with available experimental results. Finally, the effects of temperature changes, particle distributions, volume fractions, and material properties on the effective thermo-elasto-plastic properties of FGMs are studied.