The purpose of this study is to investigate the subcritical crack growth (SCG) behavior of alumina-glass dental composites. Alumina-glass composites were fabricated by infiltrating molten glass to porous alumina preforms. Rectangular bars of the composite were subject to dynamic loading in air, with stressing rates ranging from 0.01 MPa/s to 2 MPa/s. The SCG parameter n was determined to be 22.1 for the composite, which is substantially lower than those of high-purity dense alumina. Investigations showed that glass phases are responsible for the low n value as cracks propagate preferentially within glass phases or along the interface between glass phases and alumina phases, due to the fact that glasses are more vulnerable to chemical attacks by water molecules under stress corrosion conditions. The SCG behavior of the infiltration glass was also investigated and the SCG parameter n was determined to be 18.7.

Near net-shape fabrication of hydroxyapatite (HA) glass composites has been attempted by infiltrating a glass into porous HA performs. Main efforts were put to develop glasses that are chemically compatible with HA at elevated temperatures. After extensive investigations in the phosphate and borosilicate systems, glasses of (50-55)SiO2-(20-25)B203-(10-20)Li2O-(0-6)CaO (wt%) composition were successfully developed. The glass shows good chemical compatibility with HA at elevated temperatures. Dense HA/glass composites can be fabricated at 850-950 degress C by the melt infiltration process. Investigations demonstrated a good near net-shape capability of the process, where the linear shrinkage induced by the infiltration process is less than 0.1%. Preliminary mechanical tests showed that the fracture strength and toughness of the infiltrated HA/glass composite are comparable with dense HA.

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