Influence of whisker-aspect-ratio on densification, microstructure and mechanical properties of Al2O3 whiskers-reinforced CeO2-stabilized ZrO2 composites

A novel composite of 12 mol% CeO2-stablized tetragonal ZrO2 reinforced with Al2O3 whiskers (designated as Ce-TZP/Aw) has been prepared and studied in this work. The objective of this investigation was to systematically study the influence of whisker-aspect-ratio on the densification behaviors, microstructure evolution, and mechanical properties of Ce-TZP/Aw composite. Results showed that the sintered density of composite increased and the grain growth tended to diminish with the decrease in whisker aspect radio. Both the fracture toughness and flexural strength reached maximum values of 475 ± 12 MPa and 11.4 ± 0.2 MPa m1/2, respectively at a whisker aspect ratio of about 12. It was also observed that the fracture toughness, flexural strength and tetragonal to monoclinic ZrO2 transformation of the dual-phase composite exhibited similar variation trend as a function of the whisker-aspect-ratio, which suggested that the stress-induced phase transformation should be the main toughening and strengthening mechanism in the Ce-TZP/Aw composite.