Sintering, microstructure and mechanical properties of commercial Y-TZPs

The sintering behaviour of Y-TZP ceramics, their resulting microstructures and properties are influenced not only by the characteristics of the raw materials but also were found to be dependent on the thermal history during the fabrication process. It is generally understood that fracture toughness increases as grain size increases up to a certain limit but in the present investigation, the results obtained challenge this view. The work is concerned with grain size dependence on the mechanical properties, in particular on the fracture toughness. Two commercially available powders based on two different processing techniques (i.e. coated and co-precipitated) were studied. It has been found that both materials exhibited different fracture toughness trends. Smaller grains of coated Y-TZP resulted in high fracture toughness > 12 MPa m(1/2) while the opposite effect was seen in the co-precipitated material wh ich showed en ha need fracture toughness with increasing grain size above a certain lower limit from a nonconventional heat treatment.