Numerical simulation of diametral compression tests for the evaluation of porous ceramic disks

Numerical simulation of diametral compression tests for the evaluation of porous ceramic disks The mechanical behavior of porous cordierite materials was studied by diametral compression tests. The analytical solution allowing the indirect measuring of the tensile mechanical strength in this load configuration is formulated under certain assumption which may be not satisfied in practice. With the aim to analyze deviations of the ideal conditions, the test was simulated using computational techniques. Porous cordierite disks were prepared by firing (650 degrees C, 2h) and reaction-sintering (1330 degrees C, 4h) of green disks shaped by thermogelling the aqueous suspensions of a cordierite precursor mixture (kaolin, talc and alumina) with native potato starch as a consolidator/binder of ceramic particles and a pore former by burn-out at high temperature. The mechanical tests were carried out in displacement control (0.2 mm/min) using a servohydraulic testing machine. From the apparent stress-strain ratio, the following parameters were determined: mechanical strength, apparent Young modulus and yield stress. Fracture features of tested disks were also analyzed. The influence of the geometrical deviations more usually identified in practice (deviation of the circularity and no parallelism between the plane surfaces of the disk) on the stress distribution was studied by means of the simulation by finite element method, considering the Hertz's equation for contact problems as reference.