4.1 This practice may be used for material development, material comparison, quality assurance, characterization, reliability assessment, and design data generation.

4.2 High-strength, monolithic advanced ceramic materials are generally characterized by small grain sizes (<50 μm) and bulk densities near the theoretical density. These materials are candidates for load-bearing structural applications requiring high degrees of wear and corrosion resistance, and high-temperature strength. Although flexural test methods are commonly used to evaluate strength of advanced ceramics, the non uniform stress distribution in a flexure specimen limits the volume of material subjected to the maximum applied stress at fracture. Uniaxially-loaded tensile strength tests may provide information on strength-limiting flaws from a greater volume of uniformly stressed material.

4.3 Cyclic fatigue by its nature is a probabilistic phenomenon as discussed in STP 91A and STP 588.(1,2)4 In addition, the strengths of advanced ceramics are probabilistic in nature. Therefore, a sufficient number of test specimens at each testing condition is required for statistical analysis and design, with guidelines for sufficient numbers provided in STP 91A, (1) STP 588, (2) and Practice E739. The many different tensile specimen geometries available for cyclic fatigue testing may result in variations in the measured cyclic fatigue behavior of a particular material due to differences in the volume or surface area of material in the gage section of the test specimens.

4.4 Tensile cyclic fatigue tests provide information on the material response under fluctuating uniaxial tensile stresses. Uniform stress states are required to effectively evaluate any non-linear stress-strain behavior which may develop as the result of cumulative damage processes (for example, microcracking, cyclic fatigue crack growth, etc.).

4.5 Cumulative damage processes due to cyclic fatigue may be influenced by testing mode, testing rate (related to frequency), differences between maximum and minimum force (R or Α), effects of processing or combinations of constituent materials, or environmental influences, or both. Other factors that influence cyclic fatigue behaviour are: void or porosity content, methods of test specimen preparation or fabrication,test specimen conditioning, test environment, force or strain limits during cycling, wave shapes (that is, sinusoidal, trapezoidal, etc.), and failure mode. Some of these effects may be consequences of stress corrosion or sub critical (slow) crack growth which can be difficult to quantify. In addition, surface or near-surface flaws introduced by the test specimen fabrication process (machining) may or may not be quantifiable by conventional measurements of surface texture. Therefore, surface effects (for example, as reflected in cyclic fatigue reduction factors as classified by Marin (3)) must be inferred from the results of numerous cyclic fatigue tests performed with test specimens having identical fabrication histories.

4.6 The results of cyclic fatigue tests of specimens fabricated to standardized dimensions from a particular material or selected portions of a part, or both, may not totally represent the cyclic fatigue behavior of the entire, full-size end product or its in-service behavior in different environments.

4.7 However, for quality control purposes, results derived from standardized tensile test specimens may be considered indicative of the response of the material from which they were taken for given primary processing conditions and post-processing heat treatments.

4.8 The cyclic fatigue behavior of an advanced ceramic is dependent on its inherent resistance to fracture, the presence of flaws, or damage accumulation processes, or both. There can be significant damage in the test specimen without any visual evidence such as the occurrence of a macroscopic crack. This can result in a specific loss of stiffness and retained strength. Depending on the purpose for which the test is being conducted, rather than final fracture, a specific loss in stiffness or retained strength may constitute failure. In cases where fracture occurs, analysis of fracture surfaces and fractography, though beyond the scope of this practice, are recommended.

1.1 This practice covers the determination of constant-amplitude, axial tension-tension cyclic fatigue behavior and performance of advanced ceramics at ambient temperatures to establish “baseline” cyclic fatigue performance. This practice builds on experience and existing standards in tensile testing advanced ceramics at ambient temperatures and addresses various suggested test specimen geometries, test specimen fabrication methods, testing modes (force, displacement, or strain control), testing rates and frequencies, allowable bending, and procedures for data collection and reporting. This practice does not apply to axial cyclic fatigue tests of components or parts (that is, machine elements with non uniform or multiaxial stress states).

1.2 This practice applies primarily to advanced ceramics that macroscopically exhibit isotropic, homogeneous, continuous behaviour. While this practice applies primarily to monolithic advanced ceramics, certain whisker- or particle-reinforced composite ceramics as well as certain discontinuous fibre-reinforced composite ceramics may also meet these macroscopic behaviour assumptions. Generally, continuous fibre-reinforced ceramic composites (CFCCs) do not macroscopically exhibit isotropic, homogeneous, continuous behaviour and application of this practice to these materials is not recommended.

1.3 The values stated in SI units are to be regarded as the standard and are in accordance with IEEE/ASTM SI 10.

1.4 This standard does not purport to address all of the safety concerns, if any, associated with its use. It is the responsibility of the user of this standard to establish appropriate safety and health practices and determine the applicability of regulatory limitations prior to use. Refer to Section 7 for specific precautions.