Ceramic Composite Design to Increase Toughness
- Detailed Technology Description
- The invention is a ceramic composite design that mimics features of Mother of Pearl ("Nacre") in order to increase ceramic toughness.#materials #composite #nanotechnology #fabrication
- *Abstract
-
Ceramic materials have many attractive engineering qualities such as stiffness, hardness, wear resistance, and resistance to high temperatures. The primary obstacle to a wider use of ceramics in engineering applications is their brittleness. The invention consists of 95% or more of ceramic material, yet is capable of deformation strains in excess of 10%. Also, the design is such that rather than failing at one location, damage is distributed over large volumes of material - improving the ability to resist, and even stop crack propagation.
The invention retains the attractive properties of ceramic composites, but is 5-10 times tougher than the same material in "bulk" form. This level far surpasses increases reported by prior art that also attempts to mimic Nacre.
- *Inventors
- Horatio D. EspinosaFrancois Barthelat
- Country/Region
- USA
