Mechanical and Physical Properties of Zirconia

Zirconia is also known as Ceramic steel. It posses the transformational and toughening system, which doesn't occur in any other ceramic material. According to many researchers the development and marketing effort has been expended on this single material which offers the traditional ceramic advantages of hardness, wear resistance and corrosion resistance, without the characteristic ceramic property of absolute brittleness.

Elementary properties of zirconia ceramic which makes it highly usable ceramic:

·        High hardness

·        High strength

·        Electrical insulation

·        Very high wear resistance

·        High fracture toughness

·        Excellent frictional behavior

·        Extremely non-magnetic nature

·        Low thermal conductivity

·        Modulus of elasticity equal to steel

·        Coefficient of thermal expansion similar to iron

·        High corrosion resistance in alkalis and acids

In familiar with all other engineering ceramics, the achievement of these properties is mostly reliant on both the initial powders and the fabrication methods. These outstanding properties advance and enhance the machining zirconia process. As it leads to perfect machining of the material. Therefore, it is a highly machinable ceramic material.

All commonly used ceramic consolidation methods can be applied to zirconia ceramic. Some of these techniques are iso-static pressing, dry pressing injection moulding, extrusion tape casting and dry pressing. Fault elimination at all development stages is essential for not only reliability but also high strength.  


With decisive flaws of the order of 45 µm, clean room technique has been shown to drastically improve both distribution of strengths and mean strengths. The values of about 1500 MPa bending strength with modulus 30 have been recorded for various zirconia ceramic materials.