Abstract
Rare earth stabilised tetragonal zirconia polycrystals (TZPs) with stabilisers other than yttria and ceria are scarcely examined as structural ceramics. Unstabilised pyrogenic zirconia nanopowder was coated with 2·25 mol.-% of ytterbium oxide via the nitrate route. Yb-TZP ceramics were consolidated by hot pressing in vacuum at 1200–1400°C for 1 h at 60 MPa axial pressure. Mechanical properties, phase composition and microstructure were investigated. 2·25Yb-TZP exhibits a unique combination of very high strength (>1500 MPa), hardness [1300 HV10] and toughness (>9 MPa m1/2). Mechanical properties vary only slightly with variation of processing conditions. The material exhibits very high stress induced transformability from tetragonal to monoclinic of >60%. Yb-TZP may thus be an interesting alternative material to Y-TZP for high value adding applications requiring the best possible mechanical properties such as biomedical or mechanical engineering.
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