A study on the mechanical, abrasion and microstructural properties of zirconia-flyash material

The addition of zirconia in different proportions to one type of Indian flyash has been studied. The study is concentrated on mechanical properties of the materials like MOR, MOE and hardness, the sand abrasion resistance and the microstructural investigation by scanning electron microscope. It is observed that MOR of the material increases upto 10 vol% of ZrO2 in flyash and then starts decreasing. On the other hand, both MOE and the Vickers hardness increase with the increase in ZrO2 content in the matrix. The abrasion volume loss of the material decreases upto 15 vol% ZrO2 in flyash which further increase with increase in ZrO2 content. It has been pointed out from the microstructural investigation that, with the increase in addition of ZrO2 in flyash, the needle shaped mullite phases are being replaced by the near spherical shaped zircon grains. This paper correlates these data along with the physical properties and phase identification studies, which were reported earlier. ©