Wear Resistance and Surface Roughness of ATZ Ceramics with Different Silica Contents

Alumina toughened zirconia (ATZ) ceramics has a wide range of practical applications due to the unique combination of excellent mechanical properties, chemical resistance and bioinertness. The introduction of special additives (in particular SiO₂) into its composition contributes to an increase in the mechanically induced transformability of the t-ZrO₂ tetragonal phase, which has a positive effect on the complex of mechanical properties. The regularities of the silica concentration influence on tribological properties (friction coefficient μ, wear rate W and polished surface roughness R_a) of ATZ + SiO₂ ceramics have been established. It is shown that the wear resistance of ceramics, sensitive to the content of silica additive, affects the surface roughness R_a, which is retained after mechanical grinding and polishing. In general, an increasing in the SiO₂ concentration has a negative effect on the tribological characteristics. However, concentration “windows” have been identified (in the vicinity of \({{C}_{{{\text{Si}}{{{\text{O}}}_{2}}}}}\) = 1 mol % and \({{C}_{{{\text{Si}}{{{\text{O}}}_{2}}}}}\) = 4 mol %), in which the addition of SiO₂ has a minimal effect on wear resistance. In the concentration range 0 < \({{C}_{{{\text{Si}}{{{\text{O}}}_{2}}}}}\) < 3 mol %, the friction coefficient decreases non-monotonically with a minimum in the vicinity of \({{C}_{{{\text{Si}}{{{\text{O}}}_{2}}}}}\) = 1 mol %.