Xn. Huang et Ps. Nicholson, MECHANICAL-PROPERTIES AND FRACTURE-TOUGHNESS OF ALPHA-AL2O3-PLATELET-REINFORCED Y-PSZ COMPOSITES AT ROOM AND HIGH-TEMPERATURES, Journal of the American Ceramic Society, 76(5), 1993, pp. 1294-1301
YPSZ/Al2O3-platelet composites were fabricated by conventional and tap
e-casting techniques followed by sintering and HIPing. The room-temper
ature fracture toughness increased, from 4.9 MPa.m1/2 for YPSZ, to 7.9
MPa.m1/2 (by the ISB method) for 25 vol% Al2O3 platelets with aspect
ratio = 12. The room-temperature flexural strength decreased 21% and 3
0% (from 935 MPa for YPSZ) for platelet contents of 25 vol% and 40 vol
%, respectively. Al2O3 platelets improved the high-temperature strengt
h (by 110% over YPSZ with 25 vol% platelets at 800-degrees-C and by 40
% with 40 vol% platelets at 1300-degrees-C) and fracture toughness (by
90% at 800-degrees-C and 61% at 1300-degrees-C with 40 vol% platelets
). An amorphous phase at the Al2O3-platelet/YPSZ interface limited mec
hanical property improvement at 1300-degrees-C. The influence of plate
let alignment was examined by tape casting and laminating the composit
es. Platelet alignment improved the sintered density by > 1% d(th), hi
gh-temperature strength by 11% at 800-degrees-C and 16% at 1300-degree
s-C, and fracture toughness by 33% at 1300-degrees-C, over random plat
elet orientation.