The dependence of the elastic moduli of reaction bonded alumina on porosity

The resonant beam technique (RBT) allows the simultaneous determination of the Young's and the shear modulus. In the present paper this method is extended to materials covering an extremely wide range of porosities from nearly dense to the limit of stability, which is shown for ZrO2-toughened reaction-bonded Al2O3 (RBAO) ceramics as an example. Additional characterisation of the pore structure and the material's composition was performed to exclude an influence of structural parameters other than porosity.