Assessment of flaws in ceramic components.

In order to analyse the prediction of the strength of ceramic components on the basis of the fracture mechanics concept and Weibull statistics, experimental strength investigations were performed on tubes and on bending and tensile bars of different sizes of the effective stressed volumes. The smaller test specimens were prepared from the larger specimens in order to exclude the influences of possible fluctuations of the manufacturing conditions in different batches. The results of the bending and tensile experiments are presented and compared to predicted values taking into account volume and surface flaws which were detected as fracture origins.