electric field into the preform, which has the opposite electrical charge polarity. This process is under development, and is not yet used industrially. Some remaining porosity must be expected here, too. Properties Mechanical properties Basic mechanism of mechanical properties The high fracture toughness or crack resistance mentioned above is a result of the following mechanism: under load the ceramic matrix cracks, like any ceramic material, at an elongation of about 0.05%. In CMCs the embedded fibers bridge these cracks (see picture). This mechanism works only when the matrix can slide along the fibers, which means that there must be a weak bond between the fibers and matrix. A strong bond would require a very high elongation capability of the fiber bridging the crack and would result in a brittle fracture, as with conventional ceramics. The production of CMC material with high crack resistance requires a step to weaken this bond between the fibers and matrix. This is achieved by depositing a thin layer of pyrolytic carbon or boron nitride on the fibers, which weakens the bond at the fiber/matrix interface, leading to the fiber pull-out at crack surfaces, as shown in the SEM picture at the top of this article. In oxide-CMCs, the high porosity of the matrix is sufficient to establish a weak bond. Properties under tensile and bending loads, crack resistance The influence and quality of the fiber interface can be evaluated through mechanical properties. Measurements of the crack resistance were performed with notched specimens (see figure) in so-called single-edge-notch-bend (SENB) tests. In fracture mechanics, the measured data (force, geometry and crack surface) are normalized to yield the so-called stress intensity factor (SIF), KIc. Because of the complex crack surface (see figure at the top of this article) the real crack surface area can not be determined for CMC materials. The measurements, therefore, use the initial notch as the crack surface, yielding the formal SIF shown in the figure. This requires identical geometry for comparing different samples. The area under these curves thus gives a relative indication of the energy required to drive the crack tip through the sample (force times path length gives energy). The maxima indicate the load level necessary to propagate the crack through the sample. Compared to the sample of conventional SiSiC ceramic, two observations can be made: All tested CMC materials need up to several orders of magnitude more energy to propagate the