Sintering behavior of alumina whisker reinforced zirconia ceramics in hot oscillatory pressing

Abstract Alumina whisker reinforced zirconia ceramic composite was prepared by both hot oscillatory pressing (HOP) and conventional hot pressing (HP). The results show that compared with HP, HOP can significantly increase the final density and densification rate of the material. Analysis of densification kinetics reveals that the predominant densification mechanism transits from grain boundary sliding in the beginning to the diffusion in the later stage. The main effect of the oscillating pressure is to increase the densification rate in the process of grain boundary sliding. The current study suggests that HOP is a promising technique for densifying whisker reinforced ceramics.