Surface contact degradation of multilayer ceramics under cyclic subcritical loads and high number of cycles

Alumina/alumina-zirconia ceramic laminated composites produced by tape casting present a compressive residual stress at the alumina surface due to the thermal expansion mismatch between layers developed during processing. Because of this residual stress, the mechanical properties at the surface, such as wear or surface fracture, have proven to be better than the properties of a monolithic stress-free alumina. In a previous work, it was shown that this laminate composite has better resistance to the development of a ring crack when loaded with a spherical indenter, under both cyclic and static loads below the critical load for cone cracking. In this work, cyclic Hertzian indentations with subcritical loads are performed on the same laminate ceramic and a monolithic alumina, but with a higher number of cycles than the necessary to provoke the first damage (ring crack). Results show that for low and intermediate number of cycles, the laminated composite presents better resistance to damage than the monolithic alumina. However, for high number of cycles, spalling at the surface of the laminate material appears, whereas the monolithic alumina develops secondary cone cracking. This difference is attributed to the fact that laminate ceramics present an enhanced apparent fracture toughness of the material, which implies a higher quasi-plasticity due to shear driven microcracking. For a high number of cycles, these microcracks grow until coalescence at the surface, provoking exfoliation of the material at the contact area, enhanced by the fact that the indented and the indenter material have different elastic properties.