M.A. van Gils, Dortmans and G. de With, Centre for Technical Ceramics, Eindhoven, The ability of Crack (FC) model to describe temperature of five different ceramics is of the Finite ~A,~AAA'-"AA~ the 1 Introduction furniture made of coarse grained, porous…
M.A. van Gils, Dortmans and G. de With, Centre for Technical Ceramics, Eindhoven, The ability of Crack (FC) model to describe temperature of five different ceramics is of the Finite ~A,~AAA'-"AA~ the 1 Introduction furniture made of coarse grained, porous refractory ceramic in shows a good thermal shock resistance. For predicting the shock resistance the theory originally developed by Hassel- ( 1969) can be used. Although this theory is applicable for purely brittle materials, for the prediction of the actual lifetime of structural components a more sophisticated tool is required. The fracture be- haviour of the coarse grained material cannot be described with the Elastic Fracture Mechanics theory due to the existence of a process zone in front of the crack tip. This process zone results in a nonlinear fracture behaviour which should be incorporated in the constitutive behaviour. Then failure predictions can be made for an geometry using the Finite Element Method (FEM). model crack formation and crack growth in coarse grained, heterogeneous materials like concrete, rock and ceramics the Ficti- tious Crack (FC) model is often used (Carpinteri et al., 1987; Llorca and Steinbrech, 1991). With this FC model the effect of nonlinear phenomena in the process zone on the mechanical behaviour of the can be simulated. The phenomenon which is most likely to occur coarse grained materials is the interlocking of grains in the developing crack.