《Effect of microstructure on the fracture behavior of biomorphous silicon carbide ceramics》.pdf

Journal of the European Ceramic Society 22 (2002) 2697–2707 /locate/jeurceramsoc Effect of microstructure on the fracture behavior of biomorphous silicon carbide ceramics a, a a a b Peter Greil *, Evelina Vogli , Tobias Fey , Alexander Bezold , Nadja Popovska , Helmut Gerharda, Heino Siebera aDepartment of Materials Science (Glass and Ceramics), University of Erlangen-Nuernberg, Martensstr .5, D-91058 Erlangen, Germany bDepartment of Chemical Engineering, University of Erlangen-Nuernberg, Egerlandstr .3, D-91058 Erlangen, Germany Received 7 October 2001; received in revised form 22 February 2002; accepted 8 March 2002 Abstract Highly porous cellular silicon carbide was prepared from native pine wood tissue by vapor infiltration of Si, SiO, and CH3SiCl3 into the carbonized template. b-SiC at the biocarbon surface finally resulted in a complete conversion of the template into a cellular silicon carbide material. Due to the different reaction mechanisms, different strut microstructures were obtained. The strength of the biomorphous SiC was measured under biaxial tensile loading conditions perpendicular to the cell elongation (in-plane loading). A non-catastrophic stress-strain behavior was observed in the Si and CH3SiCl3 derived materials which showed a high skeleton den- sity of 53 g/cm3. Extendend cell wall fracture (peeling) was observed in the Si derived material where the original intercellular lamella was retained in the ceramic material. FE calculations of the stress distribution in a