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Improved Fracture Toughness in Advanced Nanocrystalline Ceramic Composites

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Joshua D. Kuntz ,
Guo-Dong Zhan  and
Amiya K. Mukherjee
Joshua D. Kuntz
Affiliation:
Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science University of California - Davis Davis, CA 95616
Guo-Dong Zhan
Affiliation:
Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science University of California - Davis Davis, CA 95616
Amiya K. Mukherjee
Affiliation:
Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science University of California - Davis Davis, CA 95616
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Abstract

Nanocrystalline materials have demonstrated very interesting changes in physical, chemical and mechanical properties at severely diminished length scales. This article focuses on the topic of nanocrystalline ceramic composites specifically designed for applications requiring improved fracture toughness. The difficulty in producing fully consolidated ceramic composites that retain a nanocrystalline structure is the main hurdle for thorough investigations in this area. This obstacle has been overcome in the current investigation through the use of a fast, comparably lower temperature, sintering technique e.g., Spark Plasma Sintering. Alumina based nanocomposites incorporating carbon nanotubes and additionally incorporating nanocrystalline niobium have yielded fracture toughness values that have exceeded that for pure nanocrystalline alumina by more that 300%. This introduces the question of whether this improvement is merely additive or evidence of a synergistic toughening mechanism involving ductile phase and fiber toughening.

Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 821: Symposium P – Nanoscale Materials & Modeling-Relations Among Processing, Microstructure and Mechanical Properties , 2004 , P7.5
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2004

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