Reactive Air Brazing (RAB) enables the joining of vacuum-sensitive oxide ceramics, such as Ba0.5Sr0.5Co0.8Fe0.2O3-δ (BSCF), to metals in a one-step process. However, damage may form in ceramic or joint during RAB. In this work, experimental microstructure characterization, measurement, and prediction of local material properties using finite element analysis were combined to enlighten these damage mechanisms, which are currently not well understood. Micromechanical simulations were performed using representative volume elements. Cooling simulations indicate that small-sized CuO precipitations are most likely to cause crack initiation in BSCF during cooling. The ball-on-three-balls experiment with porous BSCF samples was analyzed numerically to determine the values of temperature-dependent BSCF fracture stresses. The inversely calibrated fracture stresses in the bulk BSCF phase are underestimated, and true values should be quite high, according to an extreme value analysis of pore diameters.
Keywords: BSCF; finite element analysis (FEA); fracture strength; multiscale modeling; reactive air brazing (RAB); representative volume elements (RVEs); residual stress.