Kinetics of Athermal Martensitic Transformation in Yttria Doped Zirconia

The high temperature tetragonal phase of zirconia containing 1.40~1.60 mol% of yttria can be fully retained at room temperature by rapid cooling. The metastable tetragonal phase transforms into the monoclinic phase athermally upon subzero cooling. The transformation exhibited an athermal burst transformation. The effects of yttria content and grain size on the athermal martensitic transformation were studied in detail. The burst temperature linearly decreased with increasing yttria content or decreasing grain size. To consider the distribution of martensite nuclei, the Weibull modulus of the athermal martensitic transformation was evaluated from the distribution of the burst transformation temperature. From the Weibull analysis, the distribution of embryos appears to be more homogeneous than that of the defects responsible for the fracture of similar material.