Cyclic fatigue of a sintered Al2O3/ZrO2 ceramic

A systematic experimental and theoretical study on the crack growth behaviour of a sintered Al2O3/ZrO2 ceramic under cyclic loading is presented. It is found that in the cyclic fatigue experiments conducted on the single-edge-notched beam (SENB) geometry, for similar testing conditions, the crack growth rates are significantly faster than those under static fatigue. Al2O3/ZrO2 therefore suffers genuine mechanical fatigue. Further experiments with the compact tension (CT) geometry show that the mechanical fatigue effect arises mainly from the degradation of the bridging mechanism. A theoretical analysis based on the compliance technique and a power law relationship between the crack-wake bridging stress and the crack-face separation is developed to evaluate quantitatively the degradation of the bridging stress due to cyclic fatigue.

[1]  Y. Mai,et al.  R-curve effect on strength and reliability of toughened ceramic materials , 1995, Journal of Materials Science.

[2]  Robert O. Ritchie,et al.  Crack‐Tip Transformation Zones in Toughened Zirconia , 1990 .

[3]  S. Suresh,et al.  Crack growth in transforming ceramics under cyclic tensile loads , 1989 .

[4]  I. Chen,et al.  Fatigue of Yttria-Stabilized Zirconia: II, Crack Propagation, Fatigue Striations, and Short-Crack Behavior , 1991 .

[5]  D. Shetty,et al.  Fatigue Crack Propagation in Ceria‐Partially‐Stabilized Zirconia (Ce‐TZP)‐Alumina Composites , 1990 .

[6]  Yiu-Wing Mai,et al.  Crack growth resistance curve and size effect in the fracture of cement paste , 1987 .

[7]  R. Dauskardt,et al.  Fatigue Crack Propagation in Transformation‐Toughened Zirconia Ceramic , 1987 .

[8]  Y. Mai,et al.  Crack-Resistance Curve and Cyclic Fatigue in Ceramic Materials , 1992 .

[9]  R. Garvie,et al.  Designing Advanced Refractories with Monoclinic Zirconia Poycrystals , 1991 .

[10]  Yiu-Wing Mai,et al.  Crack growth resistance curves in strain-softening materials , 1986 .

[11]  Y. Mai,et al.  Crack‐Bridging Analysis for Alumina Ceramics under Monotonic and Cyclic Loading , 1992 .

[12]  J. Lankford,et al.  Fatigue crack growth through partially stabilized zirconia at ambient and elevated temperatures , 1991 .

[13]  R. M. Cannon,et al.  Toughening of brittle solids by martensitic transformations , 1986 .

[14]  J. Rödel,et al.  Cyclic Fatigue from Frictional Degradation at Bridging Grains in Alumina , 1991 .

[15]  Y. Mai,et al.  General method for determination of crack-interface bridging stresses , 1992 .

[16]  F. Guiu,et al.  Cyclic fatigue of ceramics , 1991 .

[17]  W. Carter,et al.  Transient subcritical crack-growth behavior in transformation-toughened ceramics , 1990 .

[18]  John Wang,et al.  Zirconia-toughened alumina (ZTA) ceramics , 1989 .

[19]  R. Ritchie,et al.  Cyclic Fatigue‐Crack Propagation in Magnesia‐Partially‐Stabilized Zirconia Ceramics , 1990 .

[20]  Rustum Roy,et al.  Materials Research Society , 1984 .

[21]  K. Kendall,et al.  Influence of toughness on Weibull modulus of ceramic bending strength , 1986 .

[22]  M. Rühle.  Microcrack and transformation toughening of zirconia-containing alumina , 1988 .

[23]  I-Wei Chen,et al.  Fatigue of Yttria‐Stabilized Zirconia: I, Fatigue Damage, Fracture Origins, and Lifetime Prediction , 1991 .