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The Efficiency of Normal Distribution in Statistical Characterization of the Experimentally Measured Strength for Ceramics

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Abstract

It has been assumed that the measured strength of ceramics follows a Weibull distribution. However, there is still no sound evidence to confirm this assumption. On the contrary, some studies have shown that other distributions such as normal distribution may describe more appropriately the measured strength data than Weibull distribution. In this paper, an extensive comparison between the efficiencies of normal and Weibull distributions in describing the strength variations was performed based on the analyses of 27 strength datasets, each containing 30 data measured on different ceramics. It was shown based on Anderson–Darling (A–D) test that, in most cases, normal distribution may give a satisfactory description for the data. The analysis results reveal that, at least for the small datasets generally used in laboratory evaluation, it seems to be unnecessary to perform a Weibull analysis because a simple normal distribution analysis is accurate enough for the statistical characterization of strength for the examined materials.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Prof. Yiwang Bao of China Building Materials Academy and Prof. Wenjie Yuan of Wuhan University of Science and Technology for providing the original strength of the datasets 17, 18 and 22, respectively. Thanks also to Prof. Jian Zhang of Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Prof. Xuejian Liu of Shanghai Institute of Ceramics and Dr. Wenjie Si of Tsinghua University for providing the test samples for the present study. This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

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  1. State Key Laboratory of New Ceramics and Fine Processing, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Jianghong Gong

  2. Department of the Prosthodontics, The General Hospital of Chinese PLA, Beijing, 100853, China

    Bin Deng

  3. State Key Laboratory of High Performance Ceramics and Superfine Microstructure, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Shanghai, 200050, China

    Danyu Jiang

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Gong, J., Deng, B. & Jiang, D. The Efficiency of Normal Distribution in Statistical Characterization of the Experimentally Measured Strength for Ceramics. J. of Materi Eng and Perform 30, 42–55 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11665-020-05352-1

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