Mono-phase bio-ceramics (alumina and zirconia) are widely used as femoral heads in total hip replacements (THR) as an alternative to metal devices. Unfortunately, the orthopaedic community reports significant in-vivo failures. Material scientists are already familiar with composites like alumina zirconia. Since both are biocompatible, this could prove to be a new approach to implants. This pape...

The failure events of Prozyr femoral heads in 2001-2002 have opened a strong, controversial issue on the future of zirconia as a biomaterial. The aim of this paper is to review and analyze the current knowledge on ageing process and on its effect on the long term performance of implants in order to distinguish between scientific facts and speculation. Current state of the art shows the strong v...

Alumina-Mullite-Zirconia ceramic composites were prepared by reaction sintering of alumina, zircon mixture and the sintering aids of magnesia and titania at temperatures of 1400 and 1600 C for 2 hours. The development of different phases and microstructures of the composites were analysed to assess the relative influence of the additives on the formation of alumina-zirconia-mullite compos...

The thermoluminescence (TL) after excitation by UV or X-rays radiation of doped α-alumina powders is investigated. In the case of zirconia, the alumina-zirconia composites present five of the characteristic peaks of zirconia at –170, –145, –90, 0 and 95°C. After a thermal treatment of mixed oxides, a new peak is observed at –35°C in TL. This peak reveals the presence of stabilized tetragonal zi...

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the influence of air-abrasion and subsequent heat treatment on the shear bond strength of the bond between indirect composites and a zirconia material. Four surface preparations were employed; ground flat, then heated to regenerate the crystal phase (C); air-abraded with alumina for 10 s (S10), for 20 s (S20), and air-abraded for 10 s and heated (H). Di...

Spray drying is widely used for producing granulated feed materials for compaction process, which is the current industrial method for manufacturing alumina-zirconia femoral heads. The optimization of the granules compaction behavior requires the control of the slurry rheology. Moreover, for a dual-phase ceramic suspension, the even phase distribution has to be kept through the atomization step...

Alumina-zirconia (AZ) composites are attractive structural materials, which combine the high hardness and Young's modulus of the alumina matrix with additional toughening effects, due to the zirconia dispersion. In this study, AZ composites containing different amounts of zirconia (in the range 5-20 vol %) were prepared by a wet chemical method, consisting on the surface coating of alumina powd...

Homogeneous composites of alumina and zirconia with a small amount of MgO (<1 wt %) were prepared by colloidal filtration. The object of using ZrO2 (15wt %) was to provide zirconia toughened alumina (ZTA). Suspensions of alumina and Zirconia with various solid loadings and various concentrations of Dolapix CE64 as surfactant were studied. The stability of these suspensions was investigated usin...