Interface engineering in oxide fibre/oxide matrix composites

Oxide fibre/oxide matrix composites form animportant and attractive subpart of ceramic matrix composites because of their inherent stability in oxidising atmospheres at high temperatures. An important attribute of such composites, however, is that the interfacial bond between oxide matrix and oxide fibre is generally very strong, and consequently, the toughness and damage tolerance of such composites are low. One way to overcome this problem is to tailor the interface such that the energy dissipating phenomena such as debonding and crack deflection at the fibre? matrix interface, followed by fibre pullout are brought into play. In this paper, the salient aspects of control of interface characteristics in oxide fibre/oxide matrix composites, with emphasis on composites consisting of alumina and mullite based oxide fibres in a variety of oxide matrixes, are reviewed.