Chapters authored
Investigation of Mechanical Behaviour of a Bioceramic
In order to find a convincing method to measure bioceramics fracture toughness, tensile strength and modulus, a novel configuration of the Brazilian test was applied and described in the experimental work. The flattened Brazilian specimens, which are in the shape of discs having parallel flat ends, are subjected to compression for determination of opening mode I fracture toughness KIC. Experiments were done by using tricalcium phosphate-fluorapatite composites, which were tested by compressive loading on the parallel flat ends. The loading angle corresponding to the flat end width is about 2α = 20° in order to guarantee crack initiation at the centre of the specimen according to the Griffith criteria. Fracture toughness was also performed by using semi-circular bend “SCB”. Finite-element program, called ABAQUS, is used for numerical modelling for finding stress intensity factors. The effects of fluorapatite additives and fracture toughness were studied. Fracture toughness values of tricalcium phosphate-fluorapatite composites were found to increase with increasing addition of fluorapatite until an appropriate value. It is shown that there is a good agreement among the experimental, analytical and numerical results.
Part of the book: Fracture Mechanics