Creep in nanocrystalline zirconia

Grain boundary sliding remains a dominant deformation process during creep in both nanocrystalline and submicron-grained zirconia. The level of segregation of Y to grain boundaries is reduced by a factor of ∼2 in nanocrystals. However, a scaling relationship for compression creep was valid in a 3 mol.% yttria-stabilized tetragonal zirconia with grain sizes in the range of ∼65–400 nm, indicating the same deformation mechanism over this range of grain sizes.