Ductile particle ceramic matrix composites—Scientific curiosities or engineering materials?

Ductile or Partial Ductile Mode Machining of Brittle Materials

This paper reports ductile or partial ductile mode machining of silicon, glass and some advanced ceramics. Results are presented using scanning electron micrographs of the machined surfaces. Grinding and lapping operations using inexpensive machine tools could produce ductile streaks on surfaces of these brittle materials under good conditions. Manufacture of spherical glass lenses by the fract...

Engineering ductile fracture in brittle-matrix composites

This letter describes a newly discovered phenomenon: ductile fracture in cementitious materials. The brittle nature of materials such as concrete and ceramics has prompted the development of various approaches to enhance their fracture toughness. Fibre reinforcement has been the common focus in the toughening of the brittle materials. Two types of fracture have been observed to date in cementit...

Wear of ceramic particle-reinforced metal-matrix composites

Wear experiments have shown that when the applied normal stress exceeds a critical value, a transition occurs from the regime of mild wear to that of adhesive wear. As a result, the wear rate of particle-reinforced aluminium composites increases by a hundred-fold. Based on dislocation and delamination theories, a criterion is proposed for determining the critical transition load, and a quantita...

MEDICAL USE OF CERAMIC MATERIALS

Ceramic Laser Materials

Ceramic laser materials have come a long way since the first demonstration of lasing in 1964. Improvements in powder synthesis and ceramic sintering as well as novel ideas have led to notable achievements. These include the first Nd:yttrium aluminum garnet (YAG) ceramic laser in 1995, breaking the 1 KW mark in 2002 and then the remarkable demonstration of more than 100 KW output power from a YA...