SANS INVESTIGATION OF CREEP PORES IN LIQUID-PHASE-SINTERED ALUMINA

Failure of ceramic materials for high-temperature applications is initiated by the formation of creep pores. Thus, the determination of the sizes and number densities of pores induced during creep testing is one key to an understanding of their failure mechanisms. Small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) techniques are for this purpose one of the most potential tools as demonstrated by an analysis of creep pores in liquid-phase-sintered, hot isostatically pressed alumina. The exploration of creep induced pores requires the analysis of SANS intensity over an extremely extended region of scattering vectors, the scanning of which needs joint use of both conventional SANS and double crystal diffractometry (DCD), an ultra-small-angle scattering technique.