Sintering of zirconia ceramics by intense high-energy electron beam

A comparative analysis of the efficiency of zirconia ceramics sintering by thermal method and high-energy electron beam sintering was performed for compacts prepared from commercial TZ-3Y-E grade powder. The electron energy was 1.4 MeV. The samples were sintered in the temperature range of 1200–1400 °C. Sintering of zirconia ceramics by high-energy accelerated electron beam is shown to reduce the firing temperature by about 200 °C compared to that in conventional heating technique. Ceramics sintered by accelerated electron beam at 1200 °C is of high density, microhardness and smaller grain size compared to that produced by thermal firing at 1400 °C. Electron beam sintering at higher temperature causes deterioration of ceramics properties due to radiation-induced acceleration of high-temperature recrystallization at higher temperatures.