Thermal and mechanical behaviors of flexible ceramics prepared by mimicking itacolumite

Abstract

Flexible ceramics with a high softness would be highly useful in stress relaxation and/or in thermal shock resistance. Natural flexible sandstone, itacolumite, has a pervasively cracked microstructure which allows some free motions between grains. Some cracked composites were prepared by sintering granular quartz or alumina with a secondary phase such as a glass phase. The synthesized composites were exhibited somewhat ductile deformation and interesting thermal and mechanical behaviors. The mechanism of this flexibility might be applied to refractory.