Anisotropic bio-inspired CerAmics: in-situ CHAracterization of LOcal fields – CACHALO

This project aims at establishing post-processing methods for a better understanding of the mechanical and fracture behaviour of nacre-like ceramic composites. These methods will couple two full-field measurement approaches, namely Raman spectroscopy for local stress field measurement and digital image correlation (DIC) for local strain field measurement. This coupling will be set-up during in-situ mechanical tests. A link between the measured Cr3+ ion fluorescence peak shift maps and the different stress tensor components will be established based on the local fields measured by DIC. Asymmetric notched specimen will be tested under bending in order to obtain mix mode loading at the notch and control the contribution of each stress component. Several notch geometries will also be studied to obtain different stress gradients at the notch. Experiment-simulation dialogue will also be established in order to enrich the analysis of the local measured fields. Considering the anisotropy of the studied nacre-like ceramic composites will enable improving existing post-processing approaches of mechanical tests of these materials, hence resulting in a better understanding of their mechanical behaviour and open new outcomes such as the full experimental determination of generalized stress intensity factors or interface property determination.