TY - JOUR A1 - Bruno, Giovanni A1 - Kachanov, Mark T1 - Microstructure-property connections for porous ceramics: The possibilities offered by micromechanics T2 - Journal of the American Ceramic Society N2 - Microstructure of porous ceramics is highly “irregular”: it comprises pores and microcracks of diverse shapes and orientations. This makes their quantitative modeling challenging, and one often resorts to empirical relations containing Fitting Parameters and having somewhat uncertain range of applicability. We review the substantial progress made in modeling of “irregular” microstructures that does not seem to have been sufficiently utilized in the context of ceramics. We discuss the possibilities offered by micromechanics in developing microstructure–property relations for porous microcracked ceramics. After an overview of relevant micromechanics topics, we focus on several issues of specific interest for ceramics: nonlinear stress–strain behavior, effective elastic properties, and thermally induced microcracking. We discuss extraction of microscale Parameters (such as strength of the intergranular cohesion, density of cracks and pores, etc.) from macroscopic data and identify the extent of uncertainty in this process. We also argue that there is no quantitative correlation between fracturing process and the loss of elastic stiffness. KW - Ceramics KW - Microcracking KW - Pores KW - Microstructure KW - Micromechanics KW - Intergranular strength KW - Nonlinearity KW - Stress– strain curves PY - 2016 UR - https://opus4.kobv.de/opus4-bam/frontdoor/index/index/docId/39355 AN - OPUS4-39355 SN - 0002-7820 SN - 1551-2916 VL - 99 IS - 12 SP - 3829 EP - 3852 AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany