Abstract
The high temperature tetragonal phase of a ZrO2–1.9mol%Y2O3 alloy can be fully retained at room temperature by rapid cooling. The metastable phase transforms into the stable monoclinic phase either isothermally or athermally depending on being heated or subzero cooled. In this paper, characteristics of the isothermal martensite have been studied. During isothermal holding, nucleation occurred at a grain boundary and it grew into a neighboring grain in the form of thin plate. The growth rate along the radial direction was about 0.1μm/s, while that of thickening direction was much slower. To investigate a habit plane of the martensite plate, two surface trace analysis was done with help of EBSP technique for the determination of individual grain orientation. The habit plane in the stereographic projection appeared at around {013}c and {014}c.
