| Metal layers within a laminar ceramic can improve damage tolerance of ceramics by arresting large cracks either by ductile bridging or by crack deflection at the ceramic/metal interface, which will allow engineers to design reliable ceramics for structural applications. At low volume fractions of the metal ductile bridging is not very effective, mainly owing to decreased distance between the crack tip and next ceramic layer. Significant increase in the energy absorption during fracture can come from delamination, but depends on the interfacial fracture resistance. A two-fold increase in energy absorption is realized in the case of glass-ceramic/silver laminates prepared by extrusion freeform fabrication. Interfacial fracture energy for glass-ceramic/silver is found to be 100 J/m2 in comparison to 15 J/m2 for glass-ceramic/SiC, which should explain the sporadic crack deflection in notched four-point bend. For a short beam flexural test shear failure is more favorable in four-point than in three-point bending. In four-point tests, the shear stresses between the outer and inner loading pins can precipitate shear delamination prior to tensile cracking of the layers. Damage modes under low velocity impact tests are similar to four-point bend showing delamination as primary energy dissipation mechanism. |
