Enhancing flexural strength of ceramics by quenching

Abstract Quenching has been widely used as a strengthening strategy in metals and glass; however, it is rarely applied to ceramics due to the thermal shock effect. In this work, several types of ceramic rods including commercial corundum, Al 2 O 3 , ZrO 2 , TiB 2 , and B 4 C were quenched in silicon oil for investigation. The flexural strength of all these ceramic rods showed an increase of 5.1%‒23.6% after quenched at 500°C. The strengthening mechanism was likely related to the transient stress at initial quenching stage. This work demonstrates that the quenching treatment is a potential method to strengthen ceramics.