The European Ceramic Society

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Jan 2, 2020

Highly ductile amorphous oxide at room temperature and high strain rate

YCN Research in Spot by Erkka J. Frankberg, Tampere University of Technology (FN) and YCN committee member

The room temperature plasticity of ceramics is not considered possible as typically there are no active plasticity mechanism available. This is generally true for crystalline ceramics, but is not without exceptions. Already in 1950's Nobel laureate Percy Bridgman showed that under confined hydrostatic loading, even alpha alumina single crystals can be permanently deformed without fracture at room temperature. This led to the idea that it might be possible to also induce unconfined (bending, pulling, twisting) plastic deformation in a ceramic material. I begun studying this possibility 5 year ago and promising preliminary results led us to concentrate our studies on amorphous Al2O3 glass. We were expecting some plasticity in this structure, but the extent of plasticity totally surprised us. Moreover, although our experimental samples are microscopic, supercomputer simulations suggest that the viscous creep plasticity mechanism could extend to bulk glass materials. I will continue searching more glasses capable of plasticity at room temperature and our results will hopefully encourage others to study this phenomenon. If the phenomenon is found applicable on a larger scale, the discovery can very well change our perception on mechanical behavior of ceramic and glass materials. It is hard to imagine all the possible uses, but in general one could say that the applications for a ductile, ultra-high strength and light material are boundless in engineering. Glasses in particular have also functional properties ranging from dielectrics to tuned semiconductors coupled with visible light transparency, which adds to the range of possible applications to electronics and batteries.
 

Latest news

Next JECS Trust Call for projects: IMPORTANT CHANGES

We draw your attention on the following decisions from the JECS Trust Board:

  • The deadline for submission of Mobility only projects of 31st August 2026 is cancelled
  • The deadline for submission of Mobility and General Activity projects of 31st May is postponed to 30th June 2026
  • Only students members of ECerS can apply for Mobility projects 
May 18, 2026
Result of the JECS Trust Call 02/2026

38 applications for Mobility projects were submitted to the JECS Trust by the deadline of 28th February 2026.

May 4, 2026

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