Hisatoshi Hirai and Akira Kitahara
Government Industrial Research Institute, Kyushu, Shuku-machi, Tosu, Saga 841, Japan
(Received April 26, 1991; Accepted July 8, 1991)
Keywords: Stereology, Degree of Contact, Particulate Composite
Abstract. This article reports a new stereological method for the estimation of the degree of contact for a system of monosized. spherical particles. Since this method is applicable to pointlike contacts, we can evaluate the degree of contact of ceramic particles in metal matrix composite in which the contact is assumed to be point. Our degree of contact is derived from the geometrical calculation of center-to-center distance between particles, evaluation of contact, and consideration of geometrical probability that two particles in contact are simultaneously cut by a test plane. In order to evaluate the reliability of our method, it is applied to a computer-simulated system of monosized spherical particles. The obtained degree of contact is consistent with that expected for the simulated system.