ENGINEERING MATERIALS

ENMT800001

TOUGHENING MECHANISM IN
CERAMICS
Prof. Dr. Ir. Akhmad Herman Yuwono, M.Phil.Eng.

DEPT. of METALLURGY & MATERIALS ENGINEERING

FAC. of ENGINEERING UNIVERSITAS INDONESIA

Toughening Mechanisms on CMCs

Naturally ceramic material consists of an assemblage of grains,

grain boundary phases, pores and possibly isolated inclusions
and surface scratches or cracks.
In the application of uniform tensile stress, the so-called critical
stress is the level of stress required by the crack to initiate. At
stresses below this value, energy is stored elastically in the
sample.
At the critical stress, a crack initiates at the critical flaw. The
stored energy is now available to concentrate at the tip of this
new crack and drive it through the ceramic.

Toughening Mechanisms on CMCs

A typical monolithic ceramic has

no mechanism to prevent this, so
crack rapidly propagates
through the ceramic and results in
catastrophic brittle fracture.
The toughening mechanisms on
ceramics are actually based on
the ways to avoid the brittle
fracture mode by allowing the
materials to withstand the
concentration of stored energy at
the crack tip or to spread out the
energy.

Toughening Mechanisms on CMCs

There are several mechanisms of toughening on ceramic composite

materials. They are:
crack deflection
crack shielding
crack bridging
fiber pullout
More than one of these mechanisms can be operative at the same
time in a ceramic composite but there is usually a dominant
mechanism depending on the constituent and interfacial properties.

Toughening Mechanisms on CMCs

Toughening Mechanisms on CMCs

Crack deflection
Crack deflection mechanism forces the crack to deviate out of
the normal stress plane as it negotiates around the
reinforcements.
The driving force is the residual stress distribution produced by
the mismatch in thermal expansion between the fiber and the
matrix.
Reinforcement with higher coefficient of thermal expansion than
the matrix will cause the matrix to be in compressive near the
reinforcement. This state will tend to deflect a crack as it
approaches the vicinity of reinforcement that is a higher crack
resistant area to a region of lower crack resistance.

Toughening Mechanisms on CMCs

Crack deflection

Toughening Mechanisms on CMCs

Crack shielding
Crack shielding is a stress-induced microstructural change that
result in a reduction in stress at the crack tip. The effect occurs in
a zone around the crack tip and extends back along the crack
(referred to as the wake).
Several type of crack shielding have been identified:
microcracking
ductile zone
transformation zone

Toughening Mechanisms on CMCs

Microcracking: results in crack shielding by locally reducing
the elastic modulus, by providing stress-strain hysteresis
accompanied by localized unloading in the wake region of
the crack, and by spreading the applied stress over many
cracks rather than one primary crack
Ductile zone involves plastic deformation around the crack,
essentially blunting the crack tip.
Transformation zone (see next slide)

Toughening Mechanisms on CMCs

Transformation zone is a special mechanism. This can be
produced in particulate composite if an added particulate
constituent undergoes a phase transformation involving a
volume increase.
The first transformation toughening observed was the one
involving zirconium oxide, ZrO2 . The toughening mechanism
involve the transformation of metastable particles of
tetragonal zirconia to stable particle of monoclinic zirconia
which is accompanied by the volume swelling by ~3% and
the resulting stress field tends to close the propagating crack,
it acts in opposite way to the externally applied stress.

Toughening Mechanisms on CMCs

Transformation zone
Microstructural evidence for the
transformation is obtainable
through x-ray diffraction and
Raman spectroscopy (the two
different forms of zirconia have
quite different infra-red spectra).
(a) lenticular particles of MgOstabilized ZrO2 (untransformed) in
cubic ZrO2.
(b) transformed particles of ZrO2
around a crack.

Toughening Mechanisms on CMCs

Transformation zone

Toughening Mechanisms on CMCs

Crack bridging
The fibers remain intact for some distance behind the crack
front, thus restraining the crack opening displacement and
reducing the stress intensity at the crack tip.
Crack bridging is a major toughening mechanism for ceramics
reinforced with long fibers. However this mechanism is also
identified for some coarse-grained ceramics, for ceramic
reinforced with platelets or whiskers and for some ceramics
reinforced with chopped or continuous fibers.
Crack bridging can also occurs if a ductile phase is present.
The ductile phase elongates rather than immediately fracturing
and inhibits crack opening.

Toughening Mechanisms on CMCs

Pull-out
Energy that would normally cause crack propagation is partially
expended by de-bonding and by friction as the fiber, particle, or
grain slides against adjacent microstructure features. This mechanism
can effectively increase fracture toughness and often accompanies
crack bridging.
The nature of the fiber-matrix interface is also critical.
The interface should not be too strong to allow the pull-out to take
place.
Other factors : degree of chemical reaction, thermal expansion
mismatch between fiber and matrix and environmental effects.