Investigations into the phase composition of zirconia-based sinters with an axial texture

Abstract

Owing to the phase transition of the tetragonal form of ZrO2into the monoclinic one, caused by mechanical stresses, preparation of powder samples for quantitative phase analysis by the X-ray diffraction method should be avoided. The process of grinding of zirconia sinters leads to considerable changes in their phase composition. For this reason, a quantitative phase analysis should be conducted on solid samples not subjected to mechanical stresses, irrespective of problems appearing during experiments and analysis. One such problem is preferred crystallographic orientation (texture). This paper describes the influence of a preferred crystallographic orientation on the quantitative phase analysis conducted on solid samples and presents the results of an analysis in which corrections for uniaxial and multiaxial textures were applied. It was found that the examined samples had a very weak but nonzero multiaxial texture. The share of the randomly oriented fraction in the examined sinters was determined to beca94 vol.% and the share of the textured fractionca6 vol.%. From the statistical point of view, in the case of small amounts of the textured fraction, a correction on one distinguished crystallographic plane can overcome this problem. In the case of the slightly textured sinters of metering nozzles subjected to investigation here, the correction related to all the unique directions was statistically insignificant because the textured part corresponds to only a small volume fraction. However, corrections related to all texture axes considerably improve the fit of the calculated X-ray pattern with the experimental one and help to better characterize the examined materials.