Abstract
Grain growth behaviors of Al2O3 grains, intragranular as well as intergranular ZrO2 grains were systematically investigated for Al2O3/ZrO2 composites with nano-sized ZrO2 dispersions, in order to find favorable processing conditions for preparing nanocomposites in Al2O2/ZrO2 system. The starting materials were ultra-fine α-Al2O3 powder (average particle size 140 nm) and classified fine ZrO2(3Y) powder (average particle size 89 nm). The composites were prepared by centrifugal slip casting method, and sintered at 1400, 1550, 1650 and 1750 oC for 2, 12, 24 and 48 hours. Influences of sintering temperature and time, volume fraction of ZrO2 dispersions in the composites, on the grain growth behaviors, size distributions and relative amount of intragranular and intergranular ZrO2 grains were studied.
