Articles
  • Fracture toughness enhancement for metal-reinforced alumina
  • Enrique Rocha-Rangela,b,*, Elizabeth Refugio-Garcíab, José G. Miranda-Hernándezb and Eduardo Terrés-Rojasc
  • a Departamento de Ingeniería Metalúrgica, ESIQIE-IPN UPALM, Av. IPN s/n, San Pedro Zacatenco, México, D. F. 07738, Mexico b Departamento de Materiales, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana Av. San Pablo # 180, Col Reynosa-Tamaulipas, México, D. F., 02200, Mexico c Laboratorio de Microscopía Electrónica de Ultra Alta Resolución, Instituto Mexicano del Petróleo, Eje Central Lazara Cárdenas # 152, Col San Bartolo Atep., México, D. F., 007730, Mexico
Abstract
With the idea to determine ways of tailoring alumina (Al2O3) in order that one or more toughening mechanisms are activated in service, investigations about the production of Al2O3-based composites with different reinforcement metals and intermetallics have been carried out. The synthesis of composites materials has been made by means of both; liquid and solid pressureless sintering of an intensive mechanical mixture of powders. With the use of some metals in the chemical formulations, significant improvements in ceramic toughness have been reported. From the fracture toughness measurements and microstructural observations, it can be concluded that the toughening mechanism in Al2O3/metal reinforced composites is due to crack bridging and crack deflection.

Keywords: Sintering, Particulate reinforced composites, fracture toughness.

This Article

  • 2009; 10(6): 744-747

    Published on Dec 31, 2009

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