Particulate composites of Al2O3/SiC, Al2O3/ZrO2 and Al2O3/ZrO2/SiC have been fabricated to investigate their R-curve behaviors and toughening mechanisms. Al2O3 containing 30 vol% SiC particles of 3${mu}{ extrm}{m}$ showed rising R-curve behavior owing to the strong crack bridging by SiC particles. The fracture toughness reached 9.1 MPa {{{{ SQRT {m} }} at the crack length of 1000${mu}{ extrm}{m}$. On the other hand, ZrO2-toughened Al2O3 had a high flat R-curve since it rose steeply in the short crack region due to the well known transformation toughening. For Al2O3/ZrO2/SiC composites, the R-curve behavior was similar to that of Al2O3/SiC but with slightly higher toughness. The SiC particles in this composite decreased the amount of transformable tetragonal phase to reduce the effect of transformation toughening by 50%. It was also found that the fracture toughness of this composite with two different toughening mechanisms was markedly lower than that estimated by the simple addition of two contributions.