Resistant Fracture Technical Ceramics Developed

The Scientists have sandwiched a thin layer of aluminum in ceramics and developed a material that not only has many of the advantages of ceramics, but also not brittle. Technical ceramic materials have many excellent properties, such as good corrosion resistance, light weight, and good heat resistance. These advantages make technical ceramic materials widely used in production and daily life.

However, these materials are prone to breakage because the ceramics are very brittle and the cracks tend to spread, eventually leading to complete failure of the material. This deadly weakness severely restricts the development and application of ceramic materials.

The scientists at the University of California in the United States have found that sandwiching an aluminum layer in a mullite ceramic layer prevents the growth of stress cracks in mullite so that the crack does not exceed a certain size. This kind of crack cannot be expanded, therefore the brittle weakness of the ceramic material is effectively overcome, so that the ceramic product produced by this method is no longer easy to break and can better meet people's needs. This approach may build the way for the manufacture of stress-resistant ceramics that are more versatile than traditional ceramics.