Tetragonal-to-mono clinic phase transformation in CeO2-stabilised zirconiaunder uniaxial loading

The critical transformation stresses of five 9 mol% Ce-TZP materials with d ifferent grain sizes have been investigated in bending. It was found that t wo different types of phase transformation mechanisms occur in these materi als. a) A homogeneous phase transformation with a transformation strain inc reasing continuously with increasing applied stress. This transformation ty pe produces the initial deviation from linear-elastic material behaviour in the stress-strain curves. (b) An autocatalytic phase transformation with t he autocatalytic formation of transformation bands, leading to a strongly i nhomogeneous, localised distribution of the monoclinic phase. Their locatio ns and sizes vary randomly. The formation of the transformation bands has b een monitored by acoustic emission recording. The amount of monoclinic phas e content has been quantified by X-ray diffractometry and Raman spectroscop y. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.