Thermal Shock Test Ceramics

Thermal shock testing exposes products to alternating low and high temperatures to accelerate failures caused by temperature cycles or thermal shocks during normal use.

Thermal shock test ceramics.

Thin circular disks are heated up to 1750 k with a tungsten halogen lamp yielding heating rates up to 1200 k s. The thermal shock of ceramic materials is influenced by many factors such as strength young s modulus fracture toughness thermal conductivity and thermal expansion coefficient. An example is a boiling water ice water test or a 300f to ice water test. The thermal shock and thermal fatigue behaviour of ceramic materials has been determined with a new type of testing system 3.

Practical experience has shown that thermal shock tests do not lead to generally useful test data. As whisker reinforced silicon nitrides can show an improvement in room temperature strength and fracture toughness one would expect that these cmcs will also possess increased thermal shock resistance. This is probably due to the fact that thermal shock failure is a complicated function of the external thermal shock conditions and of the temperature functions of five different material properties.