Internal stresses in polycrystalline zirconia: Microstructure effects

Zirconium oxide layers are submitted to internal stresses that play a role in damage of the layer. If the first order stresses are usually measured or computed, the second order stresses are also important for damage prediction, but they are difficult to measure. Microstructure simulations are performed with the finite element method to obtain internal stresses at grain scale of zirconia. The influences of the crystallographic and morphological textures are studied for monoclinic and tetragonal zirconia. The results show that crystallographic texture has a strong influence on the second order stresses, but not the morphological texture.

► We studied second order stress distribution in zirconia with aggregate simulations.
► Microstructural features encountered in zirconia layer were taken into account.
► High elastic anisotropy of monoclinic zirconia induces a large dispersion of stress.
► Morphological texture does not play a role in stress distribution at the grain scale.