Fracture Toughness of Whisker Reinforced Ceramics

摘要

By use of a probabilistic fracture model, a numerical simulation method for deformation and fracture behavior of whisker reinforced ceramics is developed first. A crack in whisker reinforced ceramics is regarded as the crack with a cohesive stress acting on the crack surface, and then the tension-softening relation is derived on the basis of a micromechanical study. After the numerical simulation method is constructed by incorporating the tension-softening relation in an FEM scheme, we simulate the load-load point displacement relationship for an edge-cracked bend specimen of a SiC whisker/alumina composite. The fracture toughness determined from the simulated maximum load is consistent with that obtained from experiment.