Superplastic Tensile Ductility Enhanced by Grain Size Refinement in a Zirconia-Dispersed Alumina

Abstract

High-temperature tensile ductility in fine-grained pure alumina is limited to {approximately}20% in engineering strain owing to rapid dynamic grain growth accompanied by large strain hardening and resultant severe cavitation. Accordingly, many trials have been made to suppress the dynamic grain growth by use of an additive such as MgO or ZrO{sub 2}. The dynamic grain growth of MgO-doped alumina, however, is still active to limit the tensile ductility to {approximately}80% at 1,623--1,773 K. Although some additional improvement is possible by the codoping of CuO or NiO, the maximum tensile elongation has remained 140%. On the other hand, ZrO{sub 2}-particle dispersion is much more effective in suppressing grain growth and hence strain hardening, whereas the resultant tensile ductility stays up to 110% or less at 1,723--1,773 K. It has been attributed to the increment of flow stress caused inherently by ZrO{sub 2}-dispersion through the suppression of grain boundary sliding. Regardless of these preceding studies, the approach by ZrO{sub 2}-particle pinning has not been completed, because the initial grain sizes of alumina reached about 1 {micro}m already in earlier experiments under tension. A possibility remains to enhance the tensile ductility of ZrO{sub 2}-dispersed alumina by such a reduction in grain size asmore » can compensate the increment of flow stress due to ZrO{sub 2}-addition. From this point of view, the present study examined the high-temperature tensile properties of a fine-grained, 10-vol%-ZrO{sub 2}-dispersed alumina prepared by colloidal processing. The results will demonstrate that large tensile elongation exceeding 500% can be obtained when the initial grain size is maintained below 0.5 {micro}m.« less