New Technology for Increasing Through-Life Reliability of Ceramics Components Using Self-Crack-Healing Ability

Abstract

Structural ceramics are superior to metallic materials in terms of their high-temperature strengths and critical heat proof temperatures. However, compared to metallic materials, ceramics exhibit lower fracture toughness, so they are more sensitive to flaws such as pores and cracks. The shortness considerably decreases the component reliability. To overcome the shortness, in this study, special attention is paid to structural ceramics with self-crack-healing ability. There are several advantages for using a material with self-crack-healing ability. (1) After an efficient machine operation, the materials are able to self-heal the cracks introduced by the machining. (2) The materials are able to self-heal the cracks introduced during service and recover the strength completely at healing temperature. However, ways of organizing the available knowledge to increase the through-life reliability of ceramics components have not been extensively studied. The authors propose a new concept and the corresponding flowchart. This new concept is a promising technique for increasing the through-life reliability of ceramics components with excellent self-crack-healing ability.