Influence of Microstructural Bias on the Hugoniot Elastic Limit and Spall Strength of Two‐Phase TiB2+Al2O3 Ceramics

The influence of microstructural bias on the Hugoniot Elastic Limit and spall strength of two‐phase TiB2+Al2O3 ceramics was investigated in this study. The microstructural bias includes differences in phase (grain) size and phase distribution such that in one case a continuous (interconnected) TiB2 network surrounds the Al2O3 phase, and in another case the TiB2 and Al2O3 phases are interdispersed and uniformly inter‐twined with each other. Dynamic compression and tension (spall) properties were measured using plate‐impact gas‐gun experiments. The measurements used piezoelectric PVDF stress gauges to obtain the loading profile and determine the Hugoniot Elastic Limit, and VISAR interferometry to obtain the spall signal and determine tensile properties. The experimental results reveal that while the strength under dynamic compression (HEL) is more dominantly dependent on the phase size, the tensile spall strength scales with the connectivity of the TiB2 phase.