Reliable Ceramic Structural Composites Designed with a Threshold Strength
Abstract
Compressive layers, placed within a laminate, can arrest cracks. With an increasing applied stress, the arrested crack can propagate through the compressive layer. These phenomena produce a material with a threshold strength, i.e., failure can not occur below a critical stress. A previously reported stress intensity function describes different variables, e.g., magnitude of compressive stress, thickness of compressive layer, distance between compressive layers, that govern the threshold strength. Laminar composites composed of thicker alumina layers separated by thinner alumina/mullite layers were fabricated to test the different variables that were predicted to govern the threshold strength. It is shown that the data agree well with the predicted values only when the magnitude of the compressive stress and/or the thickness of the compressive stress were low. For these conditions, the crack extended straight through the compressive layers as assumed by the model used to predict the threshold strength. On the other hand, when the compressive stress and/or the layer thickness were large the threshold strength was larger than the predicted value. In addition, for these conditions the crack bifurcated through the compressive layer. The angel between the bifurcated cracks increased with increasing compressive stress.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 30, 2001
- Accession Number
- ADA386815
Entities
People
- Fred F. Lange
- M. P. Rao
Organizations
- University of California, Santa Barbara