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Advanced Structural Ceramics

This document discusses advanced structural ceramics and their potential applications at high temperatures. It describes how ceramics can now be used in turbine blades through developing materials with greater fracture toughness using techniques like transformation toughening, microcrack formation, and crack deflection. These methods introduce compressive stresses or change crack propagation to absorb more energy and improve toughness. The document also notes ceramics' advantages over metals at high temperatures in terms of strength, creep resistance, and potential for more efficient engine designs if ceramics can withstand thermal shock and high-temperature environments.

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Karthick Ram
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89 views12 pages

Advanced Structural Ceramics

This document discusses advanced structural ceramics and their potential applications at high temperatures. It describes how ceramics can now be used in turbine blades through developing materials with greater fracture toughness using techniques like transformation toughening, microcrack formation, and crack deflection. These methods introduce compressive stresses or change crack propagation to absorb more energy and improve toughness. The document also notes ceramics' advantages over metals at high temperatures in terms of strength, creep resistance, and potential for more efficient engine designs if ceramics can withstand thermal shock and high-temperature environments.

Uploaded by

Karthick Ram
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Advanced Structural Ceramics

Introduction.
Key Structures.
Transformation Toughening.
Micro Crack Formation.
Crack Deflection.
High Temperature Applications of Ceramics.
Contents
Introduction
For many years design engineers have sought
materials for turbine blades that could operate at
higher temperatures than metal blades because
of higher engine efficiency. Only by developing
ceramics of greater fracture toughness has this
goal recently been realized.
Key Structures

1. Silica and Silicates:
The most important silicates are the glasses.
Low expansion Lithium Aluminium Silicate (LAS)
and vitreous silica are used alone in composites.

2. Alumina:
Alumina has a hexagonal structure and very
strong ionic-covalent bonding. A great deal of
effort has been directed toward production of
high-strength alumina and the most promising
material developed so for is zirconia toughed
with alumina.

3. Zirconia:
Zirconia in the pure form is cubic at high
temperatures and transforms upon cooling to a
mono clinic form between 800 and 1100C.

4. Carbides:
Hard Carbides are well established
commercial products ( such as tungsten carbide)
and may be used in composites are alone.



5. Nitrides:
The structure of the hard nitrides are close to
those of the carbides and follow the same hagg
relationship.

6. Borides:
The borides are also related to the carbides,
but they contain boron-boron bonds as well as
metal-boron bonds.
7.Silicides:
The silicides exhibit high hardness,
resistance to oxidation and high melting points.

8. Carbon:
Until recently graphite was considered a soft,
low strength material. The recent development of
high strength graphite fibers is due to entirely
realizing that the strength in the plane of
hexagonal plates is very high.
This method has resulted in the highest
values of plane strain fracture toughness. We first
develop a two phase structure in which one of the
phases transform under stress to a new less
dense phase. This produce compressive stress in
the region of the crack tip and arrests further
propagation of the crack.
Transformation Toughening:
Micro crack Formation:
We instinctively regard crack formation as
leading to failure because the remaining area of
sound material undergoes higher stress. However,
this analysis applies only to micro cracks, micro
cracking can absorb energy and raise plane strain
fracture toughness.
Crack Deflection:
If the progress of a crack can be changed
from a rapid catastrophic type through uniform
material to a slower, irregular type via the
positioning second phase across the crack path,
which deflects the crack, energy can be absorbed
and higher plain strain toughness obtained.
The difference is that a crack proceeding
through ductile metal absorbs greater energy,
where as little or no plastic deformation occurs
during intragranular rupture in a ceramic.
Therefore, the intergranular crack path in a
ceramic absorbs greater energy.
High-Temperature Applications of
Ceramics:
There are very strong incentives for
developing ceramics that can be used safely at
high temperatures. The strength and creep
resistance of ceramics are much higher than
those metals, which permits the design of engines
and turbines that can operate at higher
temperatures and hence more efficiently.

In considering a ceramic material, we must
evaluate three points. They are:
1. Resistance to thermal shock.
2. The effect of temp on stress- strain
relationship (creep).
3. The effect of different atmosphere at high
temperatures

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