The nucleation of the martensitic transformation of Zr0 2 from the tetragonal (t) to the monoclinic (m) symmetry is utilized to increase the toughness of ZrO2-toughened Al2O 1 (ZTA), polycrystalline Y2O3-stabilized tetragonal ZrO2 (Y-TZP) and other ceramics. This pheno menon is caused by a volume increase of the transforming particles of about 4.7% which opposes the opening of cracks and reduces the crack tip stresses.In this paper, attention is focussed to the system ZTA where spherical and ellipsoidal ZrO2-inclusions are embedded in Al2O3-grains while facetted ZrO2-particles are located between Al2O.i-ttrains (1). In contrast to bulk ZrO2 with a martensite start temperature of M,"950°C, the transformation is suppressed by the constraint of the surrounding Al2Or matrix in ZTA even at room temperature (RT). It is of great technological importance to con trol the M s -temperature simply by changing the size of the ZrO2-particles. The critical ZrO2-grain size dc is defined as that particle size where the transformation occurs at RT: dc »d(M l = RT) (2). A maximum toughness increase is obtained keeping the size of ZrO2-partides slightly below d c (d^O.6 //m -O.8 µm for ZTA (3)) in order to benefit from the trans formation of a maximum number of grains. It has been realized that the incorporation of 15 vol.% of facetted ZrO2-particles into Al2O 3 leads to optimum toughness values (4). This is mainly attributed to the interaction of the particles in case of denser populations und to the fact that regularly shaped ellipsoidal particles of a size already critical for facetted grains are lacking in defects. The latter, however, is a second prerequisite to start the martensitic trans formation.Therefore, the main driving force for the nucleation of the martensitic transformation was soon identified with the thermal stresses in the system ZTA together with geometrical irregu larities such as facetted phase boundaries. The martensitic t-m transformation is thus be lieved to nucleate heterogeneously at corners and edges of the ZrO2-particles which are other wise defect free and that shear components of the cigenstresses play a prominent role for the transformation (S). The results from the homogeneous nucleation theory suggest an oblate spheroidal shape of the nucleus (6) with a large volume of 30*30*5 nnv in Y-TZP and an experimentally observed growth direction of m-Zr0 2 from the grain boundary into the grain in Y-TZP (7).The presence of stress singularities at grain edges has been confirmed by numerical and ana lytical means (8-10). Neither the preferred nucleation site at facetted interfaces nor the shape and the growth direction of the nucleus have been addressed theoretically in the frame of heterogeneous nucleation theory until now. However, this is necessary to understand the lack of experimental observations in the transmission electron microscope (TEM) with respect to nucleation strain precursors in the system ZTA.
Particle Shape and Elastic FieldsIn this section literature data and own results are reported in ord...