Fracture properties of spray-dried powder compacts: Effect of granule size

Inappropriate mechanical properties of spray-dried powder compacts lead to significant green product losses, entailing considerable costs in ceramic tile manufacture as well as serious environmental problems. In addition, green strength can be indicative of how well a ceramic processing system is working.In this study, granules were prepared by spray drying a red clay slurry used in floor tile manufacture. The resulting granules were characterised and their porosity, morphology, and mechanical behaviour were determined.The study analyses the fracture properties of green ceramic materials using Linear Elastic Fracture Mechanics (LEFM), which has been widely used for fired materials, but whose application to green compacts has drawn much less attention. Two types of tests for determining fracture parameters (fracture toughness, fracture energy, and crack size) in green materials are also critically examined. Finally, the fracture parameters have been correlated to the microstructural characteristics of the compacts, in particular to granule size and the topography of the fracture.