• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.645-651
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• 1997

Tetragonal zirconia polycrystals (TZPs) doped with $Y_{2}O_{3}$ and $Nb_{2}O_{5}$ were prepared by the conventional sintering to enhance fracture toughness and phase stability of TZPs without controlling the grain size. TZP composites were obtained by adding the transformable TZP to the non-transformable TZP in wt%. The monolithic tetragonal $ZrO_2$, same as the composite composition containing 15 wt% transformable TZP, sintered at $1550^{\circ}C$ for 10h in air, exhibited the fracture toughness of 9$MPam^{1/2}$ and no low-and high-temperature degradation at temperatures in the range of 220 to $1000^{\circ}C$ for 100h in air. The corresponding single composition was 90.24 mol% $ZrO_2$-5.31 mol% $Y_{2}O_{3}$-4.75 mol% $Nb_{2}O_{5}$. The microstructure observation revealed that the t-$ZrO_2$ grains grew grandually with sintering time and no microcraking and twinning were observed.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.377-383
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• 1997

Yttria-stabilized TZP alloyed with pentavalent oxides $(Ta_2O_5,\;Nb_2O_5)$ were fabricated by the conventional sintering method at $1500^{\circ}C$ in air to construct the simplified ternary phase diagram. The phase stability of tetragonal -$ZrO_2$ from the quasi-binary system $ZrO_2-YTa(Nb)O_4$, which do not transform to monoclinic-$ZrO_2$ even for a wide range of grain size and annealing temperature, was investigated to determine composition region of the non-transformable $t-ZrO_2$ solid solution$(NT_{ss})$. Phase stability of $NT_{ss}$ was probably due to the enhanced stability of $_YTa(Nb)O4$ having the tetragonal fergusonite structure. It was experimentally found that mixtures having $NT_{ss}$ alloyed with $T_{ss}$ by weight%% showed both excellent phase stability of $t-ZrO_2$ and fracture toughness even though the calculated composition of the mixture /was located outside $NT_{ss}$ composition region.