Abstract
Al2O3 has good mechanical and chemical properties, so it is widely used as a structural material. However, Al2O3 is also a brittle material, therefore it is important to study fracture behavior. Generally the cracks of polycrystalline brittle materials propagated in grain or along grain boundary. It is predicted that crack propagation path in polycrystalline Al2O3 are affected by strength of grain and grain boundary character. In this study, the orientation of fracture planes and the character of grain boundaries propagated cracks were analyzed by SEM/EBSP method. It was found that transgranular fracture depended on cleavage plane, but the intergranular fracture did not depend on grain boundary character.
