Determination of Biaxial Compressive Strength of a Sintered Alumina Ceramic

The compressive strength of commercial high‐density alumina was measured in several compressive biaxial stress states. The compressive strength was only slightly affected by the magnitude of the intermediate principal stress. The average value of the compressive strengths measured in all stress states, excluding the equibiaxial and the near‐uniaxial compressive stress states, was 528 ksi. The average of the coefficients of variation was 3%. The tensile strength measured for the material indicates that the ratio of compressive strength to tensile strength is ∼ 18.