Microstructure and mechanical properties of acicular mullite
Abstract
Porous acicular mullite (ACM) ceramics are known to be mechanically robust even at high porosities. This study was undertaken to better understand what aspects of acicular mullite's needle-like microstructure affect the overall mechanical properties and how the microstructure might be modified to improve mechanical performance. ACMs with a variety of porosities, pore sizes, and needle diameters were produced, and their elastic moduli, flexure strengths, and fracture toughnesses were measured. Three-dimensional image analysis was an invaluable tool in determining the needle diameters of these complex 3D network structures. It was found that porosity was the most dominant factor in determining the mechanical properties of ACM and that its behavior could be described using the Gibson–Ashby foam model.
Additional Information
© 2012 Elsevier Ltd. Received 3 May 2012; received in revised form 16 September 2012; accepted 21 September 2012; Available online 12 October 2012. This work was funded by a research grant from The Dow Chemical Company. ACM processing was carried out at The Dow Chemical Company, and the authors would like to thank Kwanho Yang, Chan Han, Janet Goss, Sherry Allen, and Nick Shinkel from Core R&D of The Dow Chemical Company for their help and expertise. Mechanical testing was done at the MRSEC supported CLAMMP facility at Northwestern University (NSF DMR-0520513) and Professor Waltrud Kriven's laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. SEM microscopy was performed in the EPIC and Keck-II facilities of NUANCE Center at Northwestern University. NUANCE Center is supported by NSF-NSEC, NSF-MRSEC, Keck Foundation, the State of Illinois, and Northwestern University. Test sample preparation was carried out at the OMM facility of Northwestern University. Use of the Advanced Photon Source, an Office of Science User Facility operated for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science by Argonne National Laboratory, was supported by the U.S. DOE under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357. Finally, a special thanks to David Haberthür, Julie Fife, and Begum Gulsoy for their help and training in 3D image analysis.Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 47112
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.jeurceramsoc.2012.09.017
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20140709-144848100
- Dow Chemical Company
- DMR-0520513
- NSF
- W. M. Keck Foundation
- State of Illinois
- Northwestern University
- DE-AC02-06CH11357
- Department of Energy (DOE)
- Created
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2014-07-09Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-10Created from EPrint's last_modified field