An oscillatory pressure sintering of zirconia powder: Rapid densification with limited grain growth

Abstract A novel oscillatory pressure sintering ( OPS ) process is reported to prepare high‐quality ceramics. The oscillatory pressure was applied at three stages (initial, intermediate, and final) during sintering process of zirconia ceramics for the first time. The microstructure of the samples prepared by OPS develops in a more homogeneous manner, leading to a higher final density, a smaller average grain size, and a narrower distribution of grain sizes compared with the samples prepared by conventional pressureless sintering ( PS ) and hot‐pressing ( HP ) processes. Remarkably, the OPS samples was obtained at relatively lower heating temperature and less soaking time for 1300°C and 0.5 hours than the samples prepared by other two techniques at 1450°C and 1 hour. The current results suggest that OPS is an effective technique for preparing high‐quality zirconia ceramics with low heating temperature and short sintering time, thus, it obviously reduces cost.