Ceramic balls made of silicon nitride (Si₃N₄) exhibited excellent mechanical properties are used in high-end components operating at ultra-high speeds, and high and low temperatures. Previously, studies have involved the cyclic mechanical and thermal fatigue tests of ceramic balls under a constant temperature. However, the thermal fatigue characteristics of brittle materials have not been theoretically or experimentally investigated under variable thermal shock loadings to date. Herein, cyclic thermal shock fatigue (CTSF) life characteristics of Si₃N₄ ceramic balls subjected to single- and two-stage cyclic thermal shock loadings were theoretically and experimentally investigated using a probabilistic model based on slow crack growth concept in conjunction with Weibull distribution. Consequently, the fracture criterion derived from the probabilistic model was related to the linear cumulative damage law (Miner’s rule). Thereafter, the predicted CTSF life of the ceramic balls was compared with the experimental results to validate the proposed probabilistic model. Therefore, the proposed model accurately reproduced the experimental results to a certain extent.

由氮化硅 (Si ₃ N ₄ )制成的陶瓷球具有优异的机械性能，用于超高速和高低温运行的高端部件。此前，研究涉及陶瓷球在恒温下的循环机械和热疲劳试验。然而，迄今为止，脆性材料的热疲劳特性尚未在可变热冲击载荷下进行理论或实验研究。在此，Si ₃ N _{4 的}循环热冲击疲劳（CTSF）寿命特性使用基于慢裂纹扩展概念和威布尔分布的概率模型，对承受单级和两级循环热冲击载荷的陶瓷球进行了理论和实验研究。因此，从概率模型导出的断裂准则与线性累积损伤定律（Miner 规则）有关。此后，将陶瓷球的预测 CTSF 寿命与实验结果进行比较，以验证所提出的概率模型。因此，所提出的模型在一定程度上准确地再现了实验结果。