Grain Size Dependence of the Martensitic Transformation of Yttria Doped Tetragonal Zirconia Polycrystals

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Tottori University, Tottori 680, Japan

Abstract

The influences of the particle size and grain size on the phase stability were studied on powder specimens of Y-TZP. The phase stability estimated from the A_s and M_s did not appreciably change with particle size, but significantly decreased for the coarse grained powders. The latter was attributed to the incipient phase separation introduced during the annealing for the grain coarsening. A probable stress due to the anisotropic thermal expansion coefficient did not appear to influence the transformation temperatures of the present specimens. A few other minor effects caused by the particle size and grain size are discussed.