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.

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. An example is a boiling water ice water test or a 300f to ice water test. 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.

It is fairly easy to test ceramic items for their ability to resist the thermal shock to which they are likely to be exposed. Thin circular disks are heated up to 1750 k with a tungsten halogen lamp yielding heating rates up to 1200 k s. The transition between temperature extremes occurs very rapidly greater than 15 c per minute.