Low‐Temperature Aging Behavior of Alumina‐Toughened Zirconia

The corrosion of alumina-toughened zirconia (ATZ) as a consequence of hydrothermal treatment was investigated, especially the transformation kinetics from tetragonal zirconia to the monoclinic phase. For this purpose, polished ATZ specimens (R a <5 nm) were aged in water vapor at different temperatures ranging from 70° to 134°C. The fraction of the monoclinic phase was determined using X-ray diffraction and Rietveld refinement. The isothermal transformation curves obtained were fitted to the Mehl-Johnson-Avrami equation by least squares. An Arrhenius plot of the fitted transformation rates was used to determine the activation energy and the pre-exponential factor. Following this procedure, the kinetic parameters of the phase transformation were extrapolated down to body temperature and the formation of the monoclinic phase was simulated. In addition, optical interferometry on well-polished specimens (R a < 2 nm) was alternatively used to calculate the monoclinic fraction from the histogram dataset. The results agree very well with those of the X-ray measurements. Additionally, the development of surface roughness with increasing aging time is discussed.