Issue34

L. Náhlík et alii, Frattura ed Integrità Strutturale, 34 (2015) 116-124; DOI: 10.3221/IGF-ESIS.34.12 117 intensively studied during last years for different material combinations, from both theoretical and experimental sides, see e.g. [1-8] for detailed information. The specific stress distribution of layered composites can be used in design of new composite materials with improved mechanical properties, e.g. with higher flexural strength or higher resistance to crack propagation, etc. The existence of interfaces and their toughening effect are, with the advantage, used in the manufacturing of “flaw tolerant” multilayer ceramic composites [9]. There is a new class of ceramic materials under development, the ceramic laminates with controlled crack resistance and crack propagation [10-12]. The paper is focused on ceramic laminates with strongly bonded layers. The toughening mechanism of strongly bonded laminates is based on deflection and/or bifurcation of crack path caused by internal residual stresses inside the layers [13,14]. Mechanism of internal stresses evolution is based on unequal shrinkage of physically bonded materials during sintering [15]. This mechanism was experimentally proved for different kinds of ceramic laminates with strongly bonded interfaces [16-27], however only few works exists dealing with the prediction of laminate properties [28] or explaining specific crack behaviour in the ceramic laminates [29-32]. This paper focuses on the crack behaviour in the compressive layer of the laminate and describes by use of linear elastic fracture mechanics specific crack propagation (see Fig. 1) in this layer. Figure 1 : Crack bifurcation in AMZ layer. With courtesy of R. Bermejo [23]. The basic principle of the toughening of the layered ceramic composite is based on selection of two ceramics with different values of coefficients of thermal expansion. The ceramics are layered by system A-B-A symmetrically and parallelly to the axis of symmetry of the layered composite body. Cooling down from the sintering temperature leads to the development of residual stresses, which are usually of tensile nature in the outside layers. Description of the studied layered ceramic composite For the study material system based on alumina and zirconia was chosen. These two constituents can be taken as typical examples of convenient materials for layered ceramics. Behaviour of such kind of laminates were studied e.g. in [20-23]. Considered ceramic laminate was created by 9 layers. 5 were made of Al 2 O 3 /5vol.%t-ZrO 2 (alumina with tetragonal zirconia, reffered as ATZ) and 4 were made of Al 2 O 3 /30vol.%m-ZrO 2 (alumina with monoclinic zirconia, reffered as AMZ). Material characteristics were taken from literature [20,21] and are summarized in Tab. 1. The laminate was subjected to four-point bending (4PB) test, see Fig. 2. Property ATZ AMZ Young´s modulus E [GPa] 390 280 Poisson´s ratio ν [-] 0.22 0.22 Fracture toughness K IC [MPa.m 0.5 ] 3.2 2.6 Coefficient of thermal expansion t  [10 -6 K -1 ] 9.8 8.0 Strength  f [MPa] 422 90 Table 1 : Material properties of studied laminate [ 20,21 ].