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Micromechanical characteristics of titanium alloy (Ti-6Al-4V) made by laser powder bed fusion using an in-situ SEM micropillar compression technique

While titanium alloy (Ti-6Al-4V) made by laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF) exhibits complex deformation behaviors, its important micromechanical properties in relation to loading directions are not fully understood. This research aims to investigate the micromechanical behaviors of printed L-PBF Ti-6Al-4V alloys under vertical (i.e., the loading direction perpendicular to printed layers) and horizontal (i.e., the loading direction parallel to printed layers) compressions using in-situ scanning electron microscopy (SEM) micropillar techniques. Ti-6Al-4V alloys were L-PBF-printed using a 45° rotate scanning strategy with vertical and horizontal build directions. The microstructures of the two alloys were analyzed using the SEM with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS). The titanium alloy micropillars were produced using focused ion beam (FIB) milling in the SEM. In-situ SEM micropillar compressions were conducted using a flat diamond indenter. Vertical alloy had smaller cross-patterned finer α' martensite than horizontal one. While both vertical and horizontal micropillars showed elastic-plastic behaviors, the former had significantly higher yield, fracture, and compression strength values, as well as resilience and toughness, than the latter, leading to the formation of favorable shear bands. Both micropillars exhibited ductile fractures but had distinct failure mechanisms. The ductile fracture in the vertical micropillars was due to strain hardening, large plastic deformation, and shear band formation, while the ductile fracture in the horizontal ones was attributed to compression-induced bending and plastic buckling. The micromechanical characteristics of L-PBF Ti-6Al-4V materials provides an important insight into the small-scale deformation and failure mechanisms of the alloys influenced by loading directions.

Simultaneous Necking and Barreling Deformation Behaviors in Bending of Single-Crystal Gold Micro-Cantilever.

Necking and barreling deformation behaviors occurred simultaneously during the bending test of a single-crystal gold micro-cantilever (sample A) with the loading direction parallel to the [1-10] orientation and the neutral plane parallel to the [110] orientation. In contrast, for another single-crystal gold micro-cantilever, sample B, with the loading direction aligned parallel to the [0.37 -0.92 0.05] orientation and the neutral plane parallel to the [0.54 0.28 0.78] orientation, predominant slip band deformation was noted. Sample A exhibited activation of four slip systems, whereas sample B demonstrated activity in only a single-slip system. This difference suggests that the presence of multiple slip systems contributes to the concurrent occurrence of necking and barreling deformations. Furthermore, variations in the thickness of the micro-cantilevers resulted in observable strengthening, indicating that the effect of sample size is intricately linked to the geometry of the cross-section, which we have termed the "sample geometry effect".

Numerical and Experimental Evaluation of Structured Material for Use in Multiscale Topology Optimization

Multiscale topology optimization is a powerful tool for engineers seeking a design with minimum weight and maximum stiffness, using a structured material in the form of a lattice structure. Furthermore, the current trend is to combine multiple lattice topologies in one component to achieve the best possible response to local loading conditions while minimizing weight. Therefore, herein, a numerical and experimental evaluation by compression tests in two directions is performed for six basic lattice topologies and two hypotheses are tested. The first hypothesis states that an additional weight saving of more than 30% can be achieved by a better choice of lattice topology. The second hypothesis is based on the manufacturing limitations of the laser powder bed fusion technology and the assumption that a favorable loading direction parallel to the building direction exists. The first hypothesis is only confirmed for loading in the direction parallel to the building direction and the second only for two lattice topologies. When both hypotheses are combined, the additional weight reduction of the multiscale topology optimization result is 44.5% according to the numerical results and 32.7% according to the experimental verification.

Effects of off‐axis load direction on tensile properties of pultruded fiber‐reinforced polymer bolted joints with multi‐directional fiber lay‐ups

AbstractThe limited joint performance of unidirectional (UD) pultruded fiber‐reinforced polymer (FRP) composites poses a critical issue that constrains their application in structural engineering. Moreover, UD pultruded FRP joints display a notable reduction in strength and stiffness as the load angle diverges from the fiber pultrusion direction. This paper presents a numerical study of bolted pultruded FRP joints with different off‐axis loading directions. Two types of fiber lay‐ups, including UD and multi‐directional (MD), were investigated. Static tensile tests were conducted with the loading direction parallel to the pultrusion. A finite element model was validated by the test results. Studied geometric parameters includes the end‐to‐diameter (e/d) ratio, width‐to‐diameter (w/d) ratio, and bolt arrangement. Compared to UD joints, MD joints exhibited significant advantages in strength and stiffness under off‐axis loading with an increasing of 78.3% at a loading angle of 90°. Compared to the end distance, plate width has a more significant impact on the off‐axis behaviors of MD joints, especially between 30° and 75°. Multi‐bolted joints were more susceptible to net‐tension failure than single‐bolted joints. Furthermore, classical laminate theory and Hashin failure criterion were employed to predict the resistance of single‐bolted FRP joints with different loading angles, achieving high accuracy.Highlights Under increased off‐axis loading angles, compared with unidirectional (UD) joints, multi‐directional (MD) joints display a less reduction in both strength and stiffness. At a 90° angle UD joints displayed only 21.7% of the joint resistance of MD joints. Compared to the end distance, plate width has a more significant impact on the off‐axis behaviors of MD joints, especially between 30° and 75°. Classical Laminate Theory, Hashin failure criterion were effectively utilized to predict the ultimate strength of pultruded joints under various tensile loading angles, yielding high accuracy. The error between theoretical and simulated values is within 20%.

Fabrication, oxidation and creep behavior of Ti2AlN composites

Fabrication, oxidation and creep behavior of Ti2AlN composites

Experimental Investigation of Unidirectional Glass-Fiber-Reinforced Plastics under High Strain Rates

When a vehicle leaves the road, crash barriers stop it and prevent significant damage to the vehicle, its environment, and the occupants. Typically, such protection systems are made of simple steel, but fiber-reinforced composites can efficiently absorb and dissipate the impact energy at high-risk locations. In order to design such protective systems, material parameters under dynamic loading are necessary. Here, split Hopkinson pressure bar tests with unidirectional glass-fiber-reinforced epoxy of 58% glass fiber content are performed. The elastic response at strain rates between 300/s and 700/s in the loading direction parallel and perpendicular to the fiber is determined. From the measured data, a model of the time dependence of the elastic modulus is derived to enable the design engineer to lay out protective systems made of such GFRPs.

Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Electron Beam Melted Ti–5Al–5Mo–5V–1Cr–1Fe Alloy

Electron beam melting (EBM) has been prevalently employed in fabricating titanium alloys, and it is regarded as an important additive manufacturing technique that attracts significant attention. This study aims to investigate the microstructure and mechanical properties of EBM‐fabricated near β Ti‐5Al‐5Mo‐5V‐1Cr‐1Fe (Ti55511) alloy. Optical microscope (OM) and electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) results show that the columnar prior β grains with a < 100> texture are formed on a vertical plane. Furthermore, a lamellar structure comprised of α phase (56% vol.) and retained β phase (44% vol.) is observed within the prior β grains, indicating the occurrence of a β → α transformation during the EBM process. To evaluate the anisotropy and establish the relationship between microstructures and mechanical properties, tensile and fracture toughness tests are carried out with a loading direction either parallel or perpendicular to the building direction. Tensile results exhibit high ductility (elongation > 11%) and high strength (ultimate tensile strength > 1080 MPa) in both orientations of the EBM‐fabricated specimen. The anisotropy in mechanical properties is attributed to the morphological difference between the prior β grains along the vertical and horizontal directions.

Dependence of compressive creep behavior on the loading direction of an extruded Mg sheet with an extremely dilute yttrium addition

In this work, the dependence of compressive creep behavior on loading direction was investigated using an extruded Mg sheet with an extremely dilute yttrium addition (0.2 wt%Y) and a split texture. The compressive creep tests were conducted at 393 K under applied stress ranging from 50 MPa to 100 MPa, with the loading direction parallel to the extrusion direction (ED), transverse direction (TD) and normal direction (ND), respectively. It was shown that the creep behavior of this dilute alloy had obvious dependence on the loading direction. The creep resistance ranked as a high-to-low sequence of ND > TD > ED. The creep mechanisms for all loading directions were revealed to be independence on the applied stress. Normal {101‾2} twinning, independent prismatic slip and pyramidal < c + a > slip were all detected in the ED sample. Differently, the TD and ND samples shared identical creep mechanisms, including anomalous {101‾2} twinning, cross-slip and pyramidal < c + a > slip. For the ED sample, the easy twin penetration and independent prismatic slip collaboratively conspired to the poor creep resistance. For the TD and ND samples, the successive work hardening induced by anomalous {101‾2} twins and the solute segregation at grain boundaries contributed to the high creep resistance. Although the creep resistance has long been thought to proportionate to the yield stress, this work discovered that the sample with low yield stress could possess high creep resistance in a TD-split texture. Henceforth, the findings are definitely helpful for the microstructure designs of heat-resistant Mg alloys.

Effects of Sample Geometry on Micro-Mechanical Property of Single Crystal Gold for Applications in Microelectronics

This study reports mechanical properties of single-crystal pure gold toward for applications as movable components in micro-electrical-mechanical system (MEMS) inertial sensors requiring high sensitivity. Gold is commonly applied in electronic devices because of the excellent corrosion resistance, chemical stability, and conductivity. Recently, MEMS inertial sensors utilizing gold materials are reported to have low Brownian noise and high sensitivity while keeping the dimensions small by taking advantage of gold’s high mass density [1]. For design of electronic device, mechanical property characterization of the constituent material is essential. In general, mechanical strengths of metallic materials are governed by movement of the dislocation, and the dislocation movement is affected by the crystal orientation, grain boundaries, texture, impurities, etc. In addition to these, mechanical properties of metallic materials are affected by size of the sample used in the evaluation when the sample size is reduced to micro or sub-micro scale, which is known as the sample size effect [2]. This sample size effect would cause mechanical properties of micro-scale metallic materials to differ from those of bulk-size materials. Therefore, in order to make contribution to design of MEMS devices, the mechanical property characterization must be conducted using specimens having dimensions and deformation system alike components used in MEMS.Micro-bending test is suggested to be the most suitable micro-mechanical property characterization method toward MEMS devices since movable components in a MEMS device would experience both compressive and tensile stresses during operation. Regarding the sample size effect, the strength has a power-law relationship with cross-sectional area of the specimen [2]. In bending test, the loading direction is perpendicular to the cantilever’s width direction and parallel to the thickness direction. Because of this, the width and the thickness are expected to affect the sample size effect differently. On the other hand, the dislocation movable is also highly affected by the grain boundary and eventually the sample size effect [3]. Hence, single crystalline specimen is often used to examine the sample size effect to eliminate influences from the grain boundary.In this study, micro-cantilevers composed of single-crystal pure gold were fabricated using focus ion beam (FIB). All micro-cantilevers were ensured to have the loading direction parallel to the [1-10] orientation and the neutral plane parallel to the [110] orientation. Lengths of the micro-cantilevers were fixed at 50 μm. The thicknesses and widths were varied between 5 to 15 μm. The bending test was performed using a machine specially designed for micro-specimens developed in our group as shown in Fig. 1. The strain rate was fixed at 0.125 %/sec. Fig. 2 shows scanning electron microscope (SEM) images of the 50×9.7×10.5 μm3 micro-cantilever before and after the micro-bending test. From these images, slip lines and necking were observed at the base of the cantilever where stress and deformation were concentrated after the bending test. This slip lines indicated the active slip plane according to the Schmid’s law. The engineering stresses, σ, were calculated utilizing the Euler-Bernoulli beam theory [4]. The engineering strains are calculated from ratio of the d/y [5], where d is displacement of tip of the indenter. Fig. 3 shows engineering stress-engineering strain curves of the five micro-cantilevers. Yield stresses of the 6.9, 10.5, and 15.1 μm thick micro-cantilevers were 195, 175, and 128 MPa, respectively. Yield stress of the 4.7, 9.7, and 15.1μm width micro-cantilevers were 177, 175, and 183 MPa, respectively. These yield stresses were all lager than the value of bulk-size pure gold, which were results of the sample size effect. In addition, the yield stress increased as the thickness decreased, whereas it does not change much with the width reduction. This result suggested the sample size effect was only observed when changing the thickness, but not the width. These findings confirmed mechanical properties of micro-cantilevers were affected by the sample geometry, which is named as the sample geometry effect.[1] D. Yamane, T. Konishi, T. Matsushima, K. Machida, H. Toshiyoshi, and K. Masu, Appl. Phys. Lett. 104 (2014) 074102[2] J.R. Greer, W.C. Oliver, W.D. Nix, Acta. Mater. 53 (2005) 1821-1830.[3] J.R. Greer and J.Th.M. De Hosson, Prog. Mater. Sci. 56 (2011) 654-724 (2011).[4] K. Asano, T.F.M. Chang, H.C. Tang, T. Nagoshi, C.Y. Chen, D. Yamane, H. Ito, K. Machida, K. Masu, M. Sone, ECS J. Solid State Sci. Technol., 8 (2019) P412-P415.[5] E. Demir, D. Raabe, F. Roters, Acta. Mater. 58 (2010) 1876-1886. Figure 1

Anisotropic tensile behavior of Ti-47Al-2Cr-2Nb alloy fabricated by direct laser deposition

Abstract Additive manufacturing is emerging as an increasingly promising technology for TiAl alloys, which are attracting significant attention for their special microstructure and mechanical properties. In the present study, direct laser deposition was applied to fabricate single-track Ti-47Al-2Cr-2Nb alloy walls with a back-and-forth scanning strategy. The resulting alternative-band microstructure, comprising complicated microstructure bands and coarse lamellar colony bands, was characterized, and electronic back-scatter diffraction analysis showed that the lamellae in coarse colonies present a consistent orientation, nearly parallel to the substrate. The tensile properties of the as-deposited specimens varied greatly with the angle ( θ ) between the loading direction and the substrate. The specimens exhibited the best comprehensive tensile properties of the maximum ultimate strength and elongation (706 MPa and 0.51 %) with the loading direction parallel to the substrate ( θ = 0 ° ). The ultimate strength and elongation dropped to minimum values of 273 MPa and 0.16 %, respectively, when the loading direction was perpendicular to the substrate ( θ = 90 ° ). At the middle state of loading direction, θ = 45 ° , the ultimate strength decreased to 358 MPa, and the elongation remained as high as 0.49 %. Transmission electron microscopy observations revealed that dislocations and deformation twinning were both activated under different loading modes, and their morphologies were dramatically different. The formation mechanism of the alternative-band microstructure was proposed from the aspects of rapid solidification and the cyclic heat-treatment effect, and its possible fracture mechanism and crack propagation mode were discussed.

Kinking and cracking behavior in nacre under stepwise compressive loading.

The damage evolution of nacre under compressive loading has not been well understood, despite numerous investigations on its compressive behavior. In the present work, quasi-in-situ loading-unloading-reloading stepwise compressive tests were performed on nacre in Pinctada maxima shell, which exhibits a distinctive gradient feature with the thickness of platelets decreasing from the external to internal parts. In the loading direction parallel to the platelets, multiple microcracks and kink bands can absorb much deformation energy, leading to a graceful failure. Kinking only occurs at the final stage of fracture process, and it thus has no obvious influence on the strength of nacre, but contributes to a much larger strain. In the loading direction perpendicular to the platelets, nacre exhibits concurrently much higher compressive strength and fracture strain, as the damage can be effectively restricted. This is attributed to the presence of gradient structure, which disperses the stress concentration in front of the crack tip, and arouses the toughening mechanisms including damage localization and crack deflection. The findings obtained in this study are expected to provide fundamental insights into the design of bio-inspired advanced engineering materials.

Anisotropic features of natural Teguline clay

Abstract In general, due to their geological formation by deposition, natural stiff clays exhibit anisotropic thermo-hydro-mechanical behaviour. This behaviour is important to be considered in geological and geo-environmental engineering. In this study, natural stiff Teguline clay was extracted at different depths and the thermal conductivity, compressibility and hydraulic conductivity were determined on samples along various orientations with respect to the bedding plane. Significant thermal and hydraulic conductivity anisotropies were evidenced with higher values along the bedding plane, indicating that both heat and water transfers preferentially occurred along the direction parallel to the bedding plane. Moreover, the compression index in the horizontal direction were found lower than in the vertical direction, while opposite phenomenon was observed for the yield stress. The degrees of thermal conductivity anisotropy ηΤ, compression index anisotropy ηCc1, yield stress anisotropy ησ'y and hydraulic conductivity anisotropy ηk1 were found comparable, indicating that bedding is a good indicator of the inherent thermo-hydro-mechanical anisotropy for natural stiff clays. Upon loading in oedometer after the yield stress, the inherent anisotropy changed: for the vertical sample (loading direction normal to the bedding plane), loading led to more and more anisotropy, while for the horizontal sample (loading direction parallel to the bedding plane), the inherent anisotropy disappeared first; then, the induced anisotropy was developed. These findings provided useful information for analyzing the thermo-hydro-mechanical anisotropy of natural soils in geotechnical and geo-environmental engineering.

Mechanical and morphological characterization of spherical cell porous structures manufactured using FDM process

The mechanical behavior and the deformation characteristics of porous polylactide acid (PLA) structures manufactured additively to different morphologies under quasi-static uniaxial compression are investigated in this paper. The PLA porous specimens are designed by CAD and manufactured with fused deposition modeling (FDM). The effects of macrostructure and compression direction compared to layer deposition strategy on the way of deformation and crushing behavior of PLA structures are studied. The loading directions are parallel and perpendicular to the direction of manufacture. The experimental results indicated that the PLA structures with hexagonal stacking, open porosity and loading direction parallel to the manufactured direction show good performances since Young modulus, plateau stress and densification strain. In addition, structures with square stack are more likely to induce local collapse during compression test and stable deformation process. Furthermore, the results revealed that PLA structures with parallel direction have higher strength and smaller lateral expansion than those with perpendicular direction. The most interesting microscopic observation is that the cellular structures based on closed porosity and parallel direction presented a deformation behavior dominated by walls buckling. However, the cellular structures based on perpendicular direction showed the presence of cracks between the layers and following direction of loading.

Twinning behavior of hot extruded AZ31 hexagonal prisms during uniaxial compression

Hot-extruded magnesium alloy AZ31 bar was cut into hexagonal prisms and then compressed at room temperature with the loading direction parallel to the extrusion direction (ED) or perpendicular to ED. The effective stress and strain evolution at center and corner region of the hexagonal prisms was simulated by using DEFORM 3D, while microstructure evolution was characterized by electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD). Relationship between twinning behavior and stress–strain evolution during compression at room temperature was studied. The results indicated that the compressive stress and strain levels at central region of hexagonal prisms were lower than those at the corner parts. EBSD examination revealed that {10-12} twins activate during the compression and the volume fraction of twins at corner parts were less than that at the central parts, which was attributed to twin thickening and coalescence behaviors. Meanwhile, the EBSD map indicated that the arise of {10-11} contraction twins and {10-11}-{10-12} double twins in compressed samples, especially in the corner region with loading axis perpendicular to ED, which were considered to be related to the high stress level at corner region. The dislocation slips led to low-angle boundaries in LA⊥ED and LA//ED.

Effect of strain rate on mechanical properties of the bamboo material under quasi-static and dynamic loading condition

Abstract As a kind of fiber-reinforced bio-composite , bamboo material exhibits superior mechanical performance. In present work, quasi-static and dynamic Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar (SHPB) compression experiments at the nominal strain rate range of 500 s −1–2200 s−1 were carried out to investigate the effect of strain rate on mechanical behaviors of the bamboo material. In consideration of the effect of fiber directions on mechanical behaviors, the specimens were crushed with the loading direction parallel to the fiber longitudinal direction and perpendicular to the fiber direction, respectively. The experiments under both loading directions exhibited remarkable strain rate sensitivity . The yield stress for the specimens crushed along the fiber longitudinal direction increased from 38.59 MPa to 94.25 MPa, as the strain rate varied from 1.85 × 10 −3 to 2200 s−1 , while it increased from 7.18 MPa to 42.04 MPa for the specimens crushed perpendicularly to the fiber direction. Final deformation photographs and scanning electron micrographs of the bamboo microstructures clearly illustrated their damage morphologies and various failure mechanisms, including fiber buckling, fiber fractures , PCs collapse, delamination and crack propagation at different strain rates and loading directions. These results may provide a novel perspective on the mechanical behaviors of bamboo microstructure and design of new bio-inspired structural materials.

Anisotropy in creep-ageing behavior of textured Al-Cu-Mg alloy

Abstract Creep age forming (CAF) has been developed to manufacture large complex components in aerospace industry. However, crystalline textures in initial material for CAF process may influence the creep ageing behavior, leading to low precision of formed component. In-planer anisotropy in creep-ageing behavior of a textured Al-Cu-Mg alloy was investigated. The total creep deformation decreased with the increase of the angles between the applied stress and rolling direction. The creep deformation of samples with loading direction parallel to rolling direction is 2.33, 2.07 and 1.62 times greater than that perpendicular to the rolling direction, under 120 MPa, 150 MPa and 180 MPa, respectively. A strong dependence of the anisotropy in creep deformation on the initial textures was suggested, according to the equivalent slid system numbers. With the rise of the external stress, the creep deformation of three different orientation samples increases but the anisotropy of those declines. However, the stress exponent difference among the three orientation samples may be related to the equivalent Schmid factor changes. Although the anisotropy of the mechanical properties in creep aged samples with various orientations is less than 5%, the in-planar anisotropy values of creep deformation under different creep age forming conditions are larger than 30%. It indicated that creep-ageing anisotropy of the studied alloy sheet cannot be ignored in their CAF applications.

Evolution mechanism of dislocation boundary and characteristic micro-structure of commercial pure titanium during the projectile impact

Abstract Dislocation boundary response and characteristic micro-structure were investigated in commercial pure titanium during the penetration impact and dynamic compression. The initial dislocation boundary induced by cold rolling can strengthen the adiabatic shearing sensitivity of commercial pure titanium during the penetration impact, which is consistent with the mechanical response and micro-structure during the dynamic compression. The compression with a loading direction vertical to the initial geometrically necessary boundaries (GNBs) results in the decrease in the spacing between GNBs, while the compression with a loading direction parallel to the initial GNBs attributes to the generation of new dislocation boundary crossed with the initial one. Then, a model of distribution and morphology of dislocation boundary around crater is proposed.

Low cycle fatigue of a directionally solidified nickel-based superalloy: Testing, characterisation and modelling

Abstract Low cycle fatigue (LCF) of a low-carbon (LC) directionally-solidified (DS) nickel-base superalloy, CM247 LC DS, was investigated using both experimental and computational methods. Strain-controlled LCF tests were conducted at 850 °C, with a loading direction either parallel or perpendicular to the solidification direction. Trapezoidal loading-waveforms with 2 s and 200 s dwell times imposed at the minimum and the maximum strains were adopted for the testing. A constant strain range of 2% was maintained throughout the fully-reversed loading conditions (strain ratio R = −1). The observed fatigue life was shorter when the loading direction was perpendicular to the solidification one, indicating an anisotropic material response. It was found that the stress amplitude remained almost constant until final fracture, suggesting limited cyclic hardening/softening. Also, stress relaxation was clearly observed during the dwell period. Scanning Electron Microscopy fractographic analyses showed evidence of similar failure modes in all the specimens. To understand deformation at grain level, crystal plasticity finite element modelling was carried out based on grain textures measured with EBSD. The model simulated the full history of cyclic stress-strain responses. It was particularly revealed that the misorientations between columnar grains resulted in heterogeneous deformation and localised stress concentrations, which became more severe when the loading direction was normal to a solidification direction, explaining the shorter fatigue life observed.

Geometry anisotropy and mechanical property isotropy in titanium foam fabricated by replica impregnation method

Abstract Polyurethane (PU) foams have both geometry and mechanical property anisotropy. Metal foams, which are manufacturing by investment casting or melt deposition method and using PU foam as a template, also have mechanical property anisotropy. This work studied the mechanical properties in two directions of titanium foam with four different cell sizes fabricated using the replica impregnation method. The two directions are (1) the loading direction parallel to the foaming direction where the cells are elongated (EL direction) and (2) the loading direction perpendicular to the foaming direction where the cell are equiaxed (EQ direction). The results show that the compression responses for both EL and EQ directions are isotropy. Micrographs and X-ray micro-computed tomography show that the degree of geometry anisotropy is not strong enough to results in mechanical property anisotropy.

The effect of wall thickness distribution on mechanical reliability and strength in unidirectional porous ceramics

Macroporous ceramics exhibit an intrinsic strength variability caused by the random distribution of defects in their structure. However, the precise role of microstructural features, other than pore volume, on reliability is still unknown. Here, we analyze the applicability of the Weibull analysis to unidirectional macroporous yttria-stabilized-zirconia (YSZ) prepared by ice-templating. First, we performed crush tests on samples with controlled microstructural features with the loading direction parallel to the porosity. The compressive strength data were fitted using two different fitting techniques, ordinary least squares and Bayesian Markov Chain Monte Carlo, to evaluate whether Weibull statistics are an adequate descriptor of the strength distribution. The statistical descriptors indicated that the strength data are well described by the Weibull statistical approach, for both fitting methods used. Furthermore, we assess the effect of different microstructural features (volume, size, densification of the walls, and morphology) on Weibull modulus and strength. We found that the key microstructural parameter controlling reliability is wall thickness. In contrast, pore volume is the main parameter controlling the strength. The highest Weibull modulus () and mean strength (198.2 MPa) were obtained for the samples with the smallest and narrowest wall thickness distribution (3.1 m) and lower pore volume (54.5%).