39355 2016 eng 3829 3852 12 99 article The American Ceramic Society 1 -- -- -- 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. Journal of the American Ceramic Society 0002-7820 1551-2916 10.1111/jace.14624 13.03.2017 Giovanni Bruno Mark Kachanov eng uncontrolled Ceramics eng uncontrolled Microcracking eng uncontrolled Pores eng uncontrolled Microstructure eng uncontrolled Micromechanics eng uncontrolled Intergranular strength eng uncontrolled Nonlinearity eng uncontrolled Stress– strain curves Ingenieurwissenschaften und zugeordnete Tätigkeiten Verlagsliteratur Datei im Netzwerk der BAM verfügbar ("Closed Access")