POSTER
Damage tailoring in Al/NiTi composite manufactured by friction stir processing
By Lv Zhao (UCLouvain), Nelson Netto (UCLouvain), Lipeng Ding (UCLouvain), Jeroen Soete (KU Leuven), Hosni Idrissi (UCLouvain), Aude Simar (UCLouvain)

In the framework of metal matrix composites, most efforts are devoted to or have been devoted to mechanical strength improvements. A research gap, however, still exists regarding tailoring damage mechanisms in the composites. In the present work, we develop an Al/NiTi composite, which incorporates internal stresses due to the shape memory performance of the reinforcements. The composite is manufactured by Friction Stir Processing (FSP), which favors a homogeneous distribution and a good interface bonding due to the solid-state nature of the process. The internal stresses are obtained by a pre-straining and the shape recovery of the embedded NiTi particles. It is found that the crack deviates more significantly in the composite with internal stresses than in a reference composite without internal stresses, justifying the modification of the damage mechanism brought about by the local internal stresses in the designed Al/NiTi composite.