Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
  • Publication
    Micromechanical Modelling of Advanced Ceramics Using Statistically Representative Microstructures
    (Trans Tech Publications, 2013-09) ; ; ;
    Advanced ceramics are a class of materials used as cutting tools in some of the most demanding material removal operations. Their high hardness makes them extremely suited for use at these extreme conditions. However they have a relatively low fracture toughness when compared to other conventional tool materials. A combined experimental-numerical method was used to investigate the role of microstructure on the fracture of advanced ceramics. In particular, the effect of grain size and matrix content were examined. Representative finite volume (FV) microstructures were created using Voronoi tessellation. It is shown, by comparing with real micrographs, that the method captures the features of real microstructures in terms of grain size distribution and grain aspect ratio. It was found that the underlying microstructure significantly affects the failure of this class of materials. Furthermore, it was found that by altering the microstructural parameters in the numerical model, such as grain size and matrix cont, it is possible to specify material improvements.
      394
  • Publication
    Micromechanical Study of Strength and Toughness of Advanced Ceramics
    Numerical investigations using the finite volume (FV) method were conducted to examine the effect of microstructure and mi- crostructural properties on the fracture strength of advanced ceramics with industrial applications. Statistically representative microstructural volumes were created using a diffuse-interface model using OpenFOAM-1.6-ext. Crack initiation and growth was modeled using a recently developed arbitrary crack propagation model. It was found that by varying the Young's modulus of the second phase material, a significant change in the maximum failure load was observed. It was also shown that there exists an opti- mum Young's modulus for which a maximum failure load will be reached. A number of microstructures with a varying percentage second phase material were investigated in this study. Results indicate that for a given set of material and cohesive parameters the maximum failure load was insensitive to the percentage second phase material. This study highlights the role that microstructure adconstituent properties of brittle ceramics have on influencing the fracture strength of such material. With this in mind, a para- metric study was undertaken to examine the competition between crack deflection and crack penetration at the interface between two materials. It was found that appropriate choice of interface strength and toughness as well as second phase material compliance was required in order to promote an overall strength and toughness increase through crack deflection and bridging. Such numerical modeling is essential in order to gain a greater understanding into the structure-property relationship that exists for such advanced ceramics.
      350
  • Publication
    Micromechanical Modelling of Advanced Ceramics with Statistically Representative Synthetic Microstructures
    (Trans Tech Publications, 2013-11) ; ; ;
    Advanced ceramics are a class of material used in extreme conditions, such as high speed turning of aerospace alloys and rock drilling. Their high hardness makes them suitable for these uses, however their lower toughness means that failure due to fracture and chipping is a problem. They are composed of micron-sized particles of a primary hard phase together with either a ceramic or metallic matrix material. A combined experimental-numerical method was used to investigate the role of microstructure on the fracture of advanced ceramics. Two dimensional, statistically representative microstructures of the advanced ceramics are created using Voronoi tessellation. The synthetic microstructures are compared to real microstructures in terms of particle size distribution and particle aspect ratio. Simulation results indicate that the computed elastic parameters are within the Hashin-Shtrikman bounds and agree closely with analytical predictions made with the Eshelby-Mori-Tanaka method. It is found that the local sts and strain distribution within the model is significantly affected by the underlying microstructure, which in turn affects fracture properties. Hence, tailoring the microstructure can optimise the bulk strength parameters of the material.
      352
  • Publication
    Analysis of two-phase ceramic composites using micromechanical models
    Micromechanical models of two-phase ceramic composites are created using a modified Voronoi tessellation approach. These representative Finite Volume (FV) microstructures are used to investigate the role of microstructure on fracture of advanced ceramics. An arbitrary crack propagation model using a cell-centred finite volume based method is implemented. In particular the effect of matrix content is examined. It is shown that the underlying microstructure significantly affects the local stress and strain distributions for a two-phase ceramic containing hard particles in a softer matrix. Simulation results indicate that an increase in the volume fraction of these hard grains leads to an increase in strength of the composite material. Furthermore, it is found that the homogeneity of the microstructure affects the overall strength.
    Scopus© Citations 10  451
  • Publication
    The Role of Microstructure on the Fracture Behaviour and Statistics of Advanced Ceramics
    (Trans Tech Publications, 2013-09) ; ; ;
    Strength data of three advanced ceramics were fitted to the Weibull, normal and lognormal distributions. The three ceramics had similar grain size and varied in binder content. The role of microstructure in the failure mechanism of such ceramics was analysed in terms of the chosen strength distributions. The best-fit distributions were determined using the maximum log-likelihood criteria and a comparison between the best and worst fit was conducted using the Akaike Information Criteria (AIC). Both large and small samples were tested to investigate possible scaling effects for these ceramics. It was found that for two of the three ceramics tested that a lognormal distribution rather then the conventionally used Weibull distribution was preferable in characterising the strength data. A small drop in strength was noticed between large and small samples but this trend was not thought to be a result of scaling rather due to the decrease in binder content.
    Scopus© Citations 1  558
  • Publication
    Micromechanical modelling of ceramic based composites with statistically representative synthetic microstructures
    A combined experimental–numerical method was used to investigate the role of microstructure on the fracture of advanced ceramics. In particular, the effect of grain size and matrix content were examined. Two dimensional representative finite volume (FV) microstructures were created using Voronoi tessellation to synthetically represent the microstructure of a two phase ceramic composite. It is shown, by comparing with real micrographs, that the method captures the features of real microstructures in terms of grain size distribution, grain aspect ratio and the distribution of second phase agglomerations. Simulation results indicate the computed elastic parameters are within the Hashin–Shtrikman bounds and also agree well with the Eshelby–Mori–Tanaka method. It is found that the underlying microstructure significantly affects the local stress and strain distributions in these advanced ceramics.
    Scopus© Citations 19  836
  • Publication
    The influence of microstructure on the fracture statistics of polycrystalline diamond and polycrystalline cubic boron nitride
    Flexural strength data of a number of grades of polycrystalline diamond (PCD), and polycrystalline cubic boron nitride (PCBN) were analyzed using Weibull, normal and lognormal distributions. The role of microstructure in the failure mechanism of such materials was analyzed in terms of the chosen strength distributions. The best-fit distributions were determined using the maximum log-likelihood criteria and a comparison between the best and worst fit was conducted using the Akaike Information Criteria (AIC). Both large and small specimens were tested to investigate possible volume scaling effects for these materials. The different microstructures between the two materials was shown to have an effect on the statistical strength distributions. It was found that for PCD, in general, a lognormal distribution provided a better fit than the other distributions and no specimen size effect was observed. For PCBN a significant specimen size effect was observed and this also corresponded to the data fitting to a Weibulldistribution.
    Scopus© Citations 14  552