Moderate temperature compression incorporating plastic deformation and rearrangement in Al2O3–ZrO2 ceramics

In this article, we described an unusual plastic deformation of Al2O3–ZrO2 ceramics under uniaxial compression at 500 °C with constant engineering strain rate of 3.5×10−3 s−1. The Al2O3–ZrO2 ceramics displayed different deformations from either the traditional ceramics or the amorphous material. The Al2O3–ZrO2 ceramics started to yield at about 1.5 GPa. A large elastic strain of about 27% had been achieved when the material began to yield. The elastic deformation transited to yield smoothly without any evident peak stress. The compressive stress continuously increased to about 2.2 GPa before unloading. This unusual deformation might be related to the porous structure of the sample and coexistence of the amorphous phases and crystalline phases.