Abstract: Yttria stabilized zirconia ceramics doped with different contents of calcium phosphate were prepared by treatments including ball-milling, cold isostatic pressing and sintering in air at 1 300 ℃, 1 350 ℃ and 1 400 ℃ for 2 h. XRD, SEM and measurements of some mechanical properties on the ceramics were performed. The results show that the composites with 12％ to 15％ calcium phosphate sintered at 1 350 ℃ and with 15% calcium phosphate sintered at 1 400 ℃ mainly remained tetragonal zirconia (t-ZrO2) phase and a few monoclinic zirconia (m-ZrO2) phase and TCP. The relative densities exceed 95％ of the theoretical values. Thus these materials are hopeful of potential application as machinable ceramics in CAD/CAM.

Key words: zirconia, calcium phosphate, machinability