Preparation of High-Strength (Mg,Y)-Partially Stabilised Zirconia by Hot Isostatic Pressing

Fine-grained ( Mg, Y)-PSZs containing small amounts of spinel as a second phase have been produced by pressureless sintering and hot isostatic pressing. Their mechanical properties have been optimized by judicious adjustment of processing parameters such as sintering temperature, cooling rate and holding time of eutectoid heat treatments. Hot isostatic pressing reduces the internal defect size in compari­son with conventional sintering. Without exploiting transformation toughening, high strength values of more than 700 MPa are obtained, which rise to about 900 MPa after eutectoid ageing. Failure mechanisms are discussed in terms of defect size, defect type and R-curve behavior.