Abstract
Fracture-mechanics analysis and fractographic studies were performed to assess the effect of surface flaws on the strength of Si3N4. The critical surface-flaw size calculated from fracture-mechanics analysis was in agreement with the fractographically observed flaw size. A comparison of the results of fracture-mechanics calculations with fractographic observations indicates that the failure-initiating flaws grow subcritically before failure. The subcritical growth of these flaws and hence the strength is greatly influenced by the microstructure and grain-boundary phases.
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