TY - JOUR A1 - Kupsch, Andreas A1 - Laquai, René A1 - Müller, Bernd R. A1 - Paciornik, S. A1 - Horvath, J. A1 - Tushtev, K. A1 - Rezwan, K. A1 - Bruno, Giovanni T1 - Evolution of Damage in All-Oxide Ceramic Matrix Composite After Cyclic Loading N2 - While structural ceramics usually display a brittle mechanical behavior, their composites may show nonlinearities, mostly due to microcracking. Herein, the stiffness evolution of a sandwich-like laminate of an Al2O3 15%vol. ZrO2 matrix reinforced with Nextel 610 fibers is studied as a function of number of cycles N in tension. The stiffness of the composite degrades with increasing N, indicating microcracking. However, synchrotron X-ray refraction radiography shows that the internal specific surface of such cracks varies differently. A modeling strategy is developed for the calculation of the equivalent stiffness of mixtures (first the matrix and then the sandwich), based on the Voigt and Reuß schemes. The Bruno–Kachanov model is then used to estimate the initial microcrack density in the matrix (due to the thermal expansion mismatch) and the amount of microcracking increase upon cyclic loading. The stiffness in the composite degrades dramatically already after 20 000 cycles but then remains nearly constant. The combination of mechanical testing, quantitative imaging analysis, and modeling provides insights into the damage mechanisms acting: microcrack propagation is more active than microcrack initiation upon cyclic loading, but the second also occurs. This scenario is similar but not equal to previous results on porous and microcracked ceramics. KW - Ceramic matrix composites KW - Homogenization schemes KW - Microcracking KW - Nonlinear behavior KW - Synchrotron X-ray refraction radiography PY - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-534541 SN - 1527-2648 SN - 1438-1656 VL - 24 IS - 6 SP - 2100763 -1 EP - 2100763 -13 PB - VCH GmbH CY - Weinheim AN - OPUS4-53454 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -