SANS INVESTIGATION OF CREEP PORES IN LIQUID-PHASE-SINTERED ALUMINA

Failure of ceramic materials for high-temperature applications is init iated by the formation of creep pores. Thus, the determination of the sizes and number densities of pores induced during creep testing is on e key to an understanding of their failure mechanisms. Small-angle neu tron scattering (SANS) techniques are for this purpose one of the most potential tools as demonstrated by an analysis of creep pores in liqu id-phase-sintered, hot isostatically pressed alumina. The exploration of creep induced pores requires the analysis of SANS intensity over an extremely extended region of scattering vectors, the scanning of whic h needs joint use of both conventional SANS and double crystal diffrac tometry (DCD), an ultra-small-angle scattering technique.