FAN Yunguang 1, XIA Xiaoguang 2, ZHOU Jing 1, 3, DUAN Guolin 4
(1. College of Mechanical Engineering, Tianjin University of Science & Technology, Tianjin 300222, China; 2. College of Intelligent Manufacturing, Yangzhou Polytechnic Institute, Yangzhou 225127, Jiangsu, China; 3. Tianjin Key Laboratory of Integrated Design and On-line Monitoring for Light Industry & Food Machinery and Equipment, Tianjin 300222, China; 4. School of Mechanical Engineering, Hebei University of Technology, Tianjin 300130, China)
Abstract: ZrO2 particles with different size (d50~50 nm and d50~300 nm) were used to prepare ceramic slurries with different gradation ratios according to particle gradation theory. Specifically, low-viscosity ZrO2 slurry with solid content of 58 vol.% suitable for direct writing was prepared examined. The relationship between the particle size distributions and properties of the ZrO2 ceramics was established. The preliminary results illustrate that the rheological properties of the ZrO2 slurry are better than those of the single particle size ceramic slurry before grading without changing the solid content of the ZrO2 slurry, the grain gradation suppressed abnormal grain growth of the ZrO2 ceramic. The effect of particle size distribution on the viscosity of slurries, mechanical properties and fracture surfaces of ZrO2 ceramics weres by Zener pining of grain boundaries. The ZrO2 ceramics achieved an increase of 0.40% in relative density (99.1%), 2.50% in flexural strength (691±12 MPa) and 50.78% in fracture toughness (9.65±0.30 MPa·m1/2) when the grading ratio was 95:5 for submicron and nano zirconia powders.
Key words: particle size distribution; rheological properties; direct writing; zirconia ceramics; mechanical properties