Thermo-Mechanical Analysis of Aluminium Silicon Carbide Composite Materials

In recent years, composite materials have dominated the electronics industries and other manufacturing industries. Hence, composite materials like aluminium silicon carbide (AlSiC), has been employed to produce heat sinks, which are used mainly to manage heat in electronic devices. However, thermal fatigue of such composite material is a major challenge in maintaining reliability of the device. This paper investigates the thermomechanical effect of AlSiC composite materials. Finite element method (FEM) was used in the analyses of the composite materials based on the particulate inclusions between 10 – 50% compositions. The thermal profile (-40oC to 85oC) employed in this study is used commercially for consumer products. The fatigue life of the composite material which is based on the stresses and strains parameters were obtained and evaluated. The results from this investigation suggests that the deformations, strains, and stresses reduced with increase in the percentage of particulate inclusions. Also, the fatigue life of the composite material showed that the reliability of the material is increased with higher inclusions. This investigation demonstrated that 50% particulate inclusions has a better number of cycles to fatigue failure (5.09E+04) when compare to other inclusions. While 10% inclusions has the least fatigue life (4.39E+04) based on this investigation. Keywords: composite material; temperature profile; silicon carbide; thermal fatigue