Correlation between mechanical and conductive properties of porous/microcracked metals

Igor Sevostianov

Theoretical and applied mechanics, 28-29 (2002) no. 1.

Résumé

Difierent physical properties of anisotropic porous/microcracked materials - the elastic and the conductive ones, in particular - can be explicitly related to one another. The practical usefulness of such relations lies in the fact that one physical property (say, electric conductivity) may be easier to measure than the other (say, full set of anisotropic elastic constants). Man-made microstructures designed for the optimal combined elastic/conductive performance constitute yet another application. These relations, derived from the micromechanical considerations, are confirmed by experiments on several heterogeneous materials. It is also shown that the anisotropic yield surface for a porous ductile material can be constructed from measurements of the efiective electric conductivities. The derived cross-property correlations are sensitive to pore aspect ratios and Poisson's ratio of the virgin material.