Oxide ceramic laminates with highly textured a-alumina interlayers: I. Texture control and laminate formation

Three kinds of texture-reinforced oxide ceramic laminates with strongly bonded interfaces have been fabricated. All three were based on highly textured a-alumina interlayers, but each with a different oxide laminate matrix and a correspondingly different thermal mismatch between the textured interlayers and the matrix. Alginate-based, aqueous gel casting was used to produce a flexible tape for all the compositions studied. The highly textured alumina (TA) interlayers were derived from gel-cast tapes containing aligned alumina seed platelets. It has been found that the strongest texture derived from 9.1 vol% of the seed platelets in the gelled precursor tape. Using the March–Dollase model for texture analysis, the oriented volume fraction in the highly textured interlayers was estimated to vary from 60 to 80%.