Investigation of Ferroelastic Mechanical Behavior of Lanthanum Ferrite, LaFeO3

The present study investigates the deformation behavior of lanthanum ferrite, LaFeO3 under uniaxial compression. Ferroelastic domains were observed in samples at high temperature etching which was confirmed by scanning electron microscopic observation. XRD patterns of all samples showed characteristics reflection with orthorhombic crystal structure. Uniaxial compression tests were carried out at temperature of 93K, 193K, 293K, 393K, and 553K, at a constant loading rate of 1.0 MPa/s. All samples exhibited non-elastic stress-strain behavior during loading-unloading cycles owing to ferroelasticity. The slope of the stress-strain curves increased with increasing the temperature as well as ferroelastic parameters, initial modulus and loading modulus were increased due to ferroelastic domain switching.