Fabrication of tailored alumina-based ceramics through colloidal processing

Super-plastic zirconia-dispersed alumina ceramics with fine-grained microstructure and the other is highly textured alumina were prepared. Colloidal processing was applied to obtain dense and homogeneous zirconia-dispersed alumina ceramics with mean grain size of 0.45 mum. Large tensile elongation exceeding 550% was achieved for 10 vol% zirconia-dispersed Al2O3 at 1773K, High magnetic field (10T) was applied during slip casting of alumina suspension to produce textured microstructure. Green body with slight degree of crystallographic orientation was obtained and the degree of texture increased with increasing temperature. After densification, alumina grains grow to yield cerarnics with textured grains and high degrees of crystallographic orientation. This processing can be applied to other ceramics with asymmetric unit cell.