Influence of mechanical surface treatments on the indentation fracture toughness of glass infiltrated zirconia toughened alumina "GI-ZTA" disks

Abstract

The main objective of this study was to evaluate the influence of mechanical surface treatments for excess glass removal on the fracture toughness of a glass infiltrated zirconia toughened alumina "GI-ZTA" disks (In-Ceram® Zirconia). The GI-ZTA disks were submitted to three different mechanical surface treatments after glass infiltration (grinding, sandblasting and grinding/sandblasting/annealing). Fracture toughness was evaluated through indentation fracture (IF) test. Reliability of tests results was accessed through Weibull statistics. Results: Indentation fracture tests (IF) of GI-ZTA disks have shown that grinding was the surface treatment that presented the lowest K Ic and reliability. An annealing treatment after grinding and sandblasting promoted an increase in K Ic, mainly due to monoclinic-tetragonal reverse transformation recovering the tetragonal zirconia lost during the different mechanical surface treatments. The highest K Ic values were observed after sandblasting and grinding/sandblasting/annealing. Significance: The proposed mechanical surface treatments played an important role on the metastability of tetragonal zirconia and strongly influenced the mechanical performance of GI-ZTA. Kruskhall-Wallis test indicated that K Ic values of the three mechanical surface treatments were statistically distinct.