Abstract In this work, the sintering mechanisms of 3 mol% yttria-stabilized zirconia (TZ3Y) and TZ3Y containing 0.3 wt% of ZnO or Co3O4 were analyzed by determining the apparent activation energy of sintering from dilatometry data and observing the evolution of microstructure. Dilatometry test was performed at a heating rate ranging from 5 to 20 °C/min from room temperature up to 1500 °C. The main mechanism of each sintering additive for the studied samples was revealed from the variation of the sintering activation energy as a function of the relative density and scanning electron microscopy images. The mechanism for the ZnO additive was the formation of a liquid phase at the beginning of the sintering process, while the Co3O4 additive acted via solid-state sintering by increasing cation diffusivity.

Abstract Wear resistance is a fundamental property which defines the lifetime of cutting tools, but the investigation of wear performance of alternative hard materials for traditional WC-Co composites are recent. The present work evaluated the pin-on-disk wear behavior and mechanical properties, i.e., hardness and fracture toughness of spark plasma sintered Al2O3 matrix composites with additions of 5, 15, 25 or 30%wt of niobium carbide NbC. The wear resistance was observed to increase as a function of the NbC content, even though the hardness reached a plateau at 25%wt NbC. The composite behavior was compared to that of other alumina composite tool materials proving to be a promising material for applications such as ceramic cutting tools. The composition A95N5 presented the best combination of values of wear rate: 8.9 mm3/N.m, hardness equal to (17.36±1.72) GPa and fracture toughness of (3.2±0.6) MPa. m1/2.

O niobato de bário e chumbo (PBN) possui uma estrutura cristalina do tipo tungstênio-bronze e apresenta propriedades ferroelétricas muito interessantes tanto do ponto de vista científico quanto do ponto de vista tecnológico, revelando-se como um material bastante promissor para aplicação no desenvolvimento de dispositivos eletro-ópticos, piezoelétricos e piroelétricos. Cerâmicas à base de Pb0(0,59)Ba0,41Nb2O 6 (PBN59) foram preparadas pelo método convencional de mistura de matérias-primas. Duas rotas distintas de densificação de amostras foram utilizadas nesse trabalho: sinterização convencional e sinterização por prensagem uniaxial a quente. As caracterizações microestruturais efetuadas indicaram que as amostras obtidas via prensagem uniaxial a quente apresentam uma distribuição bimodal de tamanhos de grão e elevadas densidades, indicando que essa técnica propicia uma maior eficiência no processo de densificação das amostras. O tratamento térmico pós-prensagem uniaxial a quente induz o macro-crescimento preferencial de grãos orientados.

Lead barium niobate ferroelectric ceramics have a crystallographic tungsten bronze structure and present interesting ferroelectric properties from both scientific and technological points of view, making them very attractive for electro-optical, SAW and pyroelectric device applications. Ceramics of Pb0(0.59)Ba0.41Nb2O 6 (PBN59) were prepared through conventional mixed precursors method. Two distinct densification routes were employed in this work: conventional firing and uniaxial hot pressing. The microstructural characterizations indicated that the samples obtained by the latter method present a bimodal grain size distribution and high densities, indicating that this technique is more suitable for obtaining ceramics with high densification rates. The post-pressing annealing induces the preferentially oriented macro grain growth.