Issue 50

M. Eremin et alii, Frattura ed Integrità Strutturale, 50 (2019) 38-45; DOI: 10.3221/IGF-ESIS.50.05 38 Investigation of Failure Mechanism of Al 2 O 3 Specimens Subjected to Three-Point Bending Test Mikhail Eremin, Alexey Kulkov Institute of Strength Physics and Materials Science of Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia eremin@ispms.ru , http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5740-8221 727@ispms.ru, http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2345-6792 Igor Smolin, Valentina Mikushina Institute of Strength Physics and Materials Science of Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, Tomsk State University, Russia smolin@ispms.ru, http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3167-9530 mikushina_93@mail.ru , http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6780-5717 A BSTRACT . Experimental loading and FEM simulation-based approach at macroscale are utilized to investigate the failure mechanisms of Al 2 O 3 ceramics. Experimental characterization of the microstructure is carried out using SEM. Recently the mesoscale models of a representative volume of porous alumina ceramics were built on the basis of grain and pore distribution patterns and subjected to uniaxial loading in order to determine effective mechanical characteristics which are utilized for macroscopic simulation in this work. Pre-fracture behavior of specimens undergoes the Drucker-Prager model with non-associated plastic flow rule. Experimental and numerical simulation fracture patterns show that material exhibits predominantly mode I, sometimes passing to mixed mode I+II of crack propagation. Comparison of experimental data and numerical simulation data gives a good agreement. K EYWORDS . Alumina ceramics; Three-point bending; Crack propagation; Fracture criterion; Experiment; Numerical simulation. Citation: Eremin, M., Kulkov, A., Smolin, I., Mikushina, V., Investigation of Failure Mechanism of Al 2 O 3 Specimens Subjected to Three-Point Bending Test, Frattura ed Integrità Strutturale, 50(2019) 38-45 Received: 26.04.2019 Accepted: 07.07.2019 Published: 01.10.2019 Copyright: © 2019 This is an open access article under the terms of the CC-BY 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. I NTRODUCTION ne of the effective ways of obtaining porous alumina ceramics is slip casting with pore-producing dopants which burn out during the sintering [1]. Porous alumina ceramics are widely used as catalyst supports, filters, coatings, etc. [2]. Pore's size and morphology strongly affect the macroscopic failure behavior of devices on their basis, which maintains the research interest of these topics [3]. As well as many other ceramics on the basis of metal oxides, O