FEM-simulation of real and artificial microstructures of Mo-Si-B alloys for elastic properties and comparison with analytical methods

The elastic properties of Mo-Si-B composite materials with varying microstructures combining the experimental and numerical approaches was investigated. Microstructures of the samples were characterized by scanning electron microscopy combined with energy dispersive X-ray microanalysis and the microstructure of the alloy were quantified using an image analysis software. Dynamic resonance method was applied utilizing an ELASTOTROM 2000 device equipped with a high temperature vacuum furnace to determine the elastic properties of the quaternary alloy Mo-2.7Nb-8.9Si-7.7B and to get the homogeneity of the material. Finite element modeling of the real microstructures and Voronoi structures was done in PPM200F software package which generated the two-dimensional meshes where triangular elements reproduced different phases in the microstructures. Results on Voronoi structures were observed that there is no significant influence of grain size on the elastic material properties indicating robustness of the chosen model.