Hello, may I kindly say that it is going to be nearly impossible to answer your question without knowing the type of metal, the particle size, the binding method (i.e. mechanical compaction only, mechanical compaction followed by oven sinter, loose metal particulate bound by a polymer substate, SLS metal fabrication, etc) and the relative density of part (i.e. what percent volume of the total part geometry is occupied by the metal particles). For example, let's assume that you are analyzing a properly made, powdered-metal part (which is the second binding process that I described above). In this instance, one can arrive at a reasonable estimation of stress/strain by knowing the materal properties and the final density of the part. If the part is 90% dense and has a cross-section of 1 cm^2 (tangent to the loaded axis), then determine the "bulk" material stress at a given load by dividing the applied load by .9 cm^2. First determine if the resulting stress is below the materials proportional limit (i.e. yield strength). If so, you can divide the answer by the material's modulus to obtain its strain at said load (if you care to know the strain value). But again, I fear that I am not correctly answering your question because of the lack of background information (described in my first sentence). An additional side note: If your scenario does happen to be a typical powdered metal component, the initial particle shape is intentionally formed into highly irregular (non-sperical) shapes to help the particles remain interlocked/attached to each other while the "green", pressed-together part is awaiting the sintering oven.

Jason Raasch Thanks for the response! The metal used is 6061 aluminum, the particle size is ~100nm, and the part is formed via mechanical compaction followed by sintering as described. The part will be ~10 to 20% particulate by volume. I think the method you described will work, but let me know based on the specifics above.

Jason Raasch , has given you a quite interesting approach. hope that will work.

But before going with that you take few SEM images of the composite to analyse the interracial bonding and structure of the composite. The transformation of the load to individual particle depends on its bonding strength. SEM analysis is must i hope..