Porosity dependence of elastic modulus of porous Cr3C2 ceramics

Porous chromium carbide (Cr3C2) ceramics exhibiting a uniform and accessible porous structure comprised of three-dimensional connected struts were synthesized using a reactive sintering method. The effect of sintering temperature on the resulting microstructure of the porous Cr3C2 was studied. Young's modulus of the porous carbides was measured by dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA), and a semi-empirical model E=E0(1−P/Pc)1/JE=E0(1−P/Pc)1/J was developed (based on the generalized mixture rule (GMR)), to describe the porosity dependence of Young's modulus for this type of carbide. The constants Pc=0.8 and J=0.355 were determined by fitting the model to the measured values. The relationship between the micro-hardness of the material and the microstructure of the pores was also investigated.