Imitation of mother-of-pearl structure ceramics. Courtesy of The University of Science and Technology of China
Hefei, March 3 (Reporter Wu Lan) reporter learned from the University of Science and Technology of China on the 3rd that Mao Xuanbo, an associate researcher of the research group of academician Yu Shuhong of the university, was inspired by the residual stress enhancement mechanism of biological minerals and proposed a new bionic toughening method that can significantly improve the toughness of imitation mother-of-pearl ceramics, which is better than the most advanced bionic ceramics.
The relevant achievements were recently published in Advanced Materials, which has important guiding significance for the design and manufacture of advanced ceramic materials.
The research group is in scientific research. Courtesy of The University of Science and Technology of China
Ceramics have excellent characteristics of high hardness, high strength and high modulus, and are widely used in energy, medical, aerospace and other fields, but their brittleness limits the service environment and service life. Inspired by the natural mother-of-pearl "brick-and-mud" structure, the toughness of imitation mother-of-pearl structure ceramics has been greatly improved, but it can only reach 10 times that of raw ceramics, and the toughness of natural mother-of-pearl can be up to 40 times. For many imitation mother-of-pearl structure ceramics, an important reason for the lack of toughness amplification efficiency is that when designing and preparing multi-stage structures, the strength of the matrix sheet is too low relative to the length-to-diameter ratio, resulting in the direct fracture of the matrix sheet when the crack expands in the material.
Academician Yu Shuhong's research group used the framework developed in the past to induce mineralized growth, and confirmed through experiments that the improvement of the strength of the primitive sheet is conducive to the slip and crack deflection of the primitive sheet, and effectively improves the energy consumption effect of the external toughening mechanism. Due to the residual stress induced by the nanoparticles, the body toughness of the material is also improved. Combined with the advantages of the mother-of-pearl layer structure, the toughness magnification factor of the imitation mother-of-pearl structure ceramic is significantly improved by the design of residual stress at the nanoscale. At the same time, the dynamic mechanical properties of the material have also been correspondingly improved.
Mao Said that this new method is universal and has important guiding significance for the design and manufacture of advanced ceramic materials similar to the layered structure of imitation mother-of-pearl.