Investigation on Flaw Evolution of Additively Manufactured Al₂O₃ Ceramic by In Situ X-Ray Computed Tomography

The additive manufacturing process may create flaws inside ceramic materials. The flaws have a significant influence on the macroscopic mechanical behavior of ceramic materials. In order to reveal the influence of flaws on the mechanical behavior of additively manufactured ceramic, flaw evolution under mechanical loads was studied by in situ X-ray computed tomography (XCT) in this work. In situ compression XCT tests were conducted on stereolithographic additively manufactured Al₂O₃ ceramic. The three-dimensional full-field morphologies at different compressive loads were obtained. The evolution of flaws, including pores, transverse cracks, and vertical cracks, during compressive loading was observed. The number and volume of pores, transverse cracks, and vertical cracks were extracted. It was found that most pores and transverse cracks tend to be compacted. However, high compressive loads cause vertical cracks near the upper surface to expand, leading to the failure of the specimen. Real flaws with morphological and positional information were introduced into the finite element models. The influence of different types of flaws on the mechanical behavior is discussed. It was found that vertical cracks have a greater influence on mechanical behavior than do transverse cracks under compression. The presence of transverse cracks contributes to the evolution of vertical cracks. This study may be helpful for process optimization and performance enhancement of additively manufactured ceramic materials.