Material Sciences and Engineering,

MatE271 1
Material Sciences and Engineering
MatE271 1
Mechanical Behavior of
Ceramics and Glasses
Week 13
Material Sciences and Engineering MatE271 Week 13 2
Goals for this unit
w Recognize basic terms related to ceramics
and glasses (Ch. 12)
w Understand the brittle nature and catastrophic
failure in ceramics (Ch. 6.5, 6.6)
w Understand the role of flaws in determining fracture
strength (Ch 8.2, 8.3)
w Explore viscous nature of glasses (Ch. 6.6)
Material Sciences and Engineering,
MatE271 2
Material Sciences and Engineering MatE271 Week 13 3
Classification of Ceramics
More diverse than metals, solid solution of two or
more elements
Classification
By application (traditional industry grouping)
By chemical composition
Material Sciences and Engineering MatE271 Week 13 4
Classification by application
1. Whitewares (pottery, tableware, sanitary ware,
wall tile, etc.)
2. Refractories (materials for lining furnaces and
processing vessels)
3. Structural clay products (brick, pipe, construction
tile, roof tile, etc.)
4. Glass (subcategories of flat glass, container glass,
optical and fiber)
Material Sciences and Engineering,
MatE271 3
Material Sciences and Engineering MatE271 Week 13 5
5. Abrasives
6. Cements and plaster
7. Porcelain enamel
8. Technical or fine ceramics
electronic ceramics
structural ceramics
specialized technical applications (bio applications)
Classification by application (cont.)
Material Sciences and Engineering MatE271 Week 13 6
Classification by Chemistry
w Silicate ceramics (based on clays, talc, feldspars and
other natural minerals)
w Simple oxide ceramics (alumina, magnesia, fused
silica, beryllia, zirconia, etc.)
w Complex oxides (ferrites, titanates, zirconates, spinels,
etc.)
w Non-oxides (nitrides, carbides, silicides, graphite, etc.)
Material Sciences and Engineering,
MatE271 4
Material Sciences and Engineering MatE271 Week 13 7
Chemical classification (cont.)
Glasses
silicates
borosilicates (and borates)
phosphates
non-oxide glasses (halides)
glass-ceramics (formed as glasses and then crystallized)
glazes (coatings on ceramic)
enamels (coatings on metals)
Material Sciences and Engineering MatE271 Week 13 8
Mechanical Properties of Ceramics
-Very brittle in tension ( brittle fracture
limited energy absorption)
- Limited load carrying capacity
-The strength of ceramic materials is strongly dependent
on the processing (
)
- Ceramics are usually much stronger in compression
than in tension.
because of introduction of strength
limiting flaws
Material Sciences and Engineering,
MatE271 5
Material Sciences and Engineering MatE271 Week 13 9
Brittle Fracture of Ceramics
o At room T, both crystalline and amorphous ceramics
fracture before plastic deformation occurs
S
t
r
e
s
s
Strain
Metal
Ceramic
Ceramics dont dent
Material Sciences and Engineering MatE271 Week 13 10
Brittle Fracture of Ceramics
w Fracture is usually transgranular (rather than
intergranular)
w Cracks often grow along high density
crystallographic planes (cleavage planes)
Material Sciences and Engineering,
MatE271 6
Material Sciences and Engineering MatE271 Week 13 11
Modulus of Rupture (MOR) (Ch 6 pp201-203)
L
Area
Three point bending
Load
d
b
L
Area
Four point bending
Load
o Brittle ceramic materials are usually tested in bending
(not in tension as are most metals), why?
Sample preparation is easier
Significant difference in results for testing in
tension, compression and bending
Material Sciences and Engineering MatE271 Week 13 12
MOR Test
L
Area
Three point bending
Load
h
b
=
3FL
2bh
2
For a rectangular cross-section:
For a circular cross-section:

=
3FL
r
2
F = load
L = span
h - ||to load
r = radius

=
12xr
L
2
x=deflection
w MOR is calculated as the maximum fiber stress on the
tension side at failure (strength parameter)
Material Sciences and Engineering,
MatE271 7
Material Sciences and Engineering MatE271 Week 13 13
w Consider the fracture strength of ordinary window
glass
Theoretical Strength = 7,000 MPa
(if bonds between individual atoms are broken)
Actual Strength = 35 MPa
That is 200x weaker!
w Why the big difference?
What limits strength in brittle materials?
- Preexisting flaws-> stress concentration
Material Sciences and Engineering MatE271 Week 13 14
Strength of Ceramics
o Griffith - 1920s Proposed fine elliptical flaws exist
that concentrate stress
Flaws behave as stress magnifiers.
Applied stress may be fairly low, but effective local stress is very HIGH
2a

0
x x

0
x x

m
X
a
Material Sciences and Engineering,
MatE271 8
Material Sciences and Engineering MatE271 Week 13 15
Stress magnification by flaws
w

= external stress
w = radius of crack tip
w c = crack length
half length for internal cracks
w
m
= magnified stress at crack tip

m
=
2

o
c
Material Sciences and Engineering MatE271 Week 13 16
Stress magnification
w Suppose you have a crack of length (c) 0.5 mm and
radius (r) 1000 angstroms

m
/
o
= 70.7
w For the same crack length suppose the radius is
100 angstroms

m
/
o
= 224
Crack length and radius matters
Best if spherical defect
Material Sciences and Engineering,
MatE271 9
Material Sciences and Engineering MatE271 Week 13 17
Principles of Fracture Mechanics
Stress Concentration!
For brittle metals, most crystalline ceramics
and glasses
K Y a
IC f
=
K
IC
: fracture toughness
Y: geometric constant
a: crack length
MPa m

f
Material Sciences and Engineering MatE271 Week 13 18
Fracture toughness
K
IC
is also sometimes called the critical stress intensity
factor for the material, and it can be measured with
an MOR test on a pre-cracked (c) specimen in
3-point bending as
K
YFL
bh
c
IC
=
3
2
2

Material Sciences and Engineering,

MatE271 10
Material Sciences and Engineering MatE271 Week 13 19
Flaw Populations
All brittle materials contain a certain
population of small cracks with different
w sizes
w orientations
w geometries
w Q. How does this variation affect the strength of the
material?
In designing uses for ceramics, average strength
cannot be used. Flaw distribution is critical.
Material Sciences and Engineering MatE271 Week 13 20
w Brittle materials can have their fracture
strength increased by reducing the depth
and sharpness of surface flaws through
careful polishing or etching
w Abrasion of the surface in such a way as to
introduce flaws has just the opposite effect
Ceramic Toughening
Material Sciences and Engineering,
MatE271 11
Material Sciences and Engineering MatE271 Week 13 21
w Transformation toughening
local stress induces
transformation of dispersed
second phase
squeezes crack shut (closure)
w Microcracks
very fine cracks (much smaller
than critical size) blunt tip of
advancing crack
Ceramic Toughening (P. 277)
matrix
Cubic
ZrO
2
particles
Tetragonal
ZrO
2
+
Monoclinic
ZrO
2
Material Sciences and Engineering MatE271 Week 13 22
Static Fatigue (P287)
w low stress crack growth without cycling
occurs in water containing environments
occurs at room temperature
caused by water reacting with oxide network
H
2
O
O
+
- Si - OH
H H
- Si - O Si -
OH - Si
Crack growth by chemical
breaking of oxide network
Material Sciences and Engineering,
MatE271 12
Material Sciences and Engineering MatE271 Week 13 23
Plastic Deformation in ceramics
w At room T - rarely occurs
w At high T - deformation can occur
Creep (usually loaded in compression)
Crystalline ceramics depend on dislocation movement
(difficult)
Noncrystalline ceramics above Tg exhibit viscous flow
(like any liquid)
Mixtures creep as glassy materials (viscous flow)
Material Sciences and Engineering MatE271 Week 13 24
Glass formation at the liquid-glass transition temperature
T
g T
m
C
r
y
s
t
a
l
s
G
l
a
s
s
liquid
temperature
V
o
l
u
m
e

(
p
e
r

u
n
i
t

m
a
s
s
)
Supercooled
liquid
Forming range
Material Sciences and Engineering,
MatE271 13
Material Sciences and Engineering MatE271 Week 13 25
Glasses
w The mechanical properties of glasses are dual in nature
Below the glass transition temperature, Tg,
glass is a rigid brittle material
Above Tg, glass behaves as a viscous liquid
with behavior characterized by continuous deformation
(at a rate inversely related to viscosity) rather than a fixed
elastic strain in response to stress
Material Sciences and Engineering MatE271 Week 13 26
Glasses
Annealed: No residual stresses at room temperature
large and sharp segment breakage
Tempered: Surface quenched below Tg
Slow cooled to room temperature
- Surface residual compressive stress,
Core residual tensile stress
- finely fragmented and dull breakage.
Laminated: Two ordinary layer of annealed glass with
a central layer if polymer.
Material Sciences and Engineering,
MatE271 14
Material Sciences and Engineering MatE271 Week 13 27
Summary
w Ceramics fail by brittle fracture
w Brittle materials are sensitive to presence of flaws
w Fracture toughness of a material characterizes
resistance to crack propagation
w Glass is rigid and brittle below Tg and behaves
viscously above Tg
Read Class notes and relevant portions of
Shackelford, 2001