Repeated crack healing in MAX-phase ceramics revealed by 4D in situ synchrotron X-ray tomographic microscopy

Repeated crack healing in MAX-phase ceramics revealed by 4D in situ synchrotron X-ray tomographic microscopy

Sloof, W.G.
Pei, R.
McDonald, S.A.
Fife, J.L.
Shen, L.
Boatemaa, L.
Farle, A.S.
Yan, K.
Zhang, X.
Van der Zwaag, S.
Lee, P.D.
Withers, P.J.

Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering

Materials Science and Engineering

2016-04-14

MAX phase materials are emerging as attractive engineering materials in applications where the material is exposed to severe thermal and mechanical conditions in an oxidative environment. The Ti2AlC MAX phase possesses attractive thermomechanical properties even beyond a temperature of 1000 K. An attractive feature of this material is its capacity for the autonomous healing of cracks when operating at high temperatures. Coupling a specialized thermomechanical setup to a synchrotron X-ray tomographic microscopy endstation at the TOMCAT beamline, we captured the temporal evolution of local crack opening and healing during multiple cracking and autonomous repair cycles at a temperature of 1500 K. For the first time, the rate and position dependence of crack repair in pristine Ti2AlC material and in previously healed cracks has been quantified. Our results demonstrate that healed cracks can have sufficient mechanical integrity to make subsequent cracks form elsewhere upon reloading after healing.

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:2e2c121f-2bd7-406f-bd58-785c799458c0

Nature Publishing Group

2045-2322

https://doi.org/10.1038/srep23040

Scientific Reports, 6, 2016

Institutional Repository

journal article

(c) 2016 Creative Commons BY
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