The effect of the third invariant on the strength and failure of boron carbide and silicon carbide

This article presents new test data to assess the effect the third invariant has on the strength and failure of two ceramic materials: boron carbide and silicon carbide. Two experimental techniques are used: the Brazilian test that produces a biaxial state of stress, and a new technique that uses a high‐pressure confinement vessel to load a specially designed dumbbell specimen in triaxial extension. The dumbbell geometry provides two important advantages over the typically used cylindrical specimen: no adhesive is required to bond the specimen to the load cell because the dumbbell geometry naturally takes the specimen into tension, and any loading asymmetries are essentially eliminated due to the axisymmetric geometry. The results show that when the stress state is on the tensile meridian the equivalent stress at failure is constant, independent of the hydrostatic pressure. The average equivalent stress at failure isσ ~ = 272 MPa for boron carbide andσ ~ = 475 MPa for silicon carbide. The Brazilian test was only performed on boron carbide and failed atσ ~ ∼ 900 MPa , much higher than when on the tensile meridian ( σ ~ = 272 MPa ) indicating that the effect of the third invariant is significant (because of the difference in the failure strength) and must be accounted for to accurately predict when failure will occur.