Steatite vs. Zirconia
Both steatite and zirconia are oxide-based engineering ceramics. There are 20 material properties with values for both materials. Properties with values for just one material (5, in this case) are not shown. Please note that the two materials have significantly dissimilar densities. This means that additional care is required when interpreting the data, because some material properties are based on units of mass, while others are based on units of area or volume.
For each property being compared, the top bar is steatite and the bottom bar is zirconia.
Metric UnitsUS Customary Units
Mechanical Properties
| Compressive (Crushing) Strength, MPa | 540 to 620 | |
| 1260 to 3080 |
| Elastic (Young's, Tensile) Modulus, GPa | 68 to 120 | |
| 190 to 200 |
| Flexural Strength, MPa | 32 to 150 | |
| 630 to 970 |
| Poisson's Ratio | 0.23 | |
| 0.25 to 0.29 |
| Tensile Strength: Ultimate (UTS), MPa | 60 to 220 | |
| 410 to 450 |
Thermal Properties
| Maximum Temperature: Mechanical, °C | 750 to 1230 | |
| 500 to 1330 |
| Maximum Thermal Shock, °C | 90 to 160 | |
| 300 to 350 |
| Specific Heat Capacity, J/kg-K | 850 to 860 | |
| 400 to 510 |
| Thermal Conductivity, W/m-K | 1.8 to 2.5 | |
| 2.2 to 4.3 |
| Thermal Expansion, µm/m-K | 7.0 to 9.0 | |
| 8.8 to 9.5 |
Electrical Properties
| Dielectric Constant (Relative Permittivity) At 1 MHz | 5.7 to 6.5 | |
| 28 |
| Dielectric Strength (Breakdown Potential), kV/mm | 7.9 to 16 | |
| 7.7 to 9.0 |
| Electrical Resistivity Order of Magnitude, 10x Ω-m | 8.0 to 11 | |
| 4.5 to 11 |
Otherwise Unclassified Properties
| Density, g/cm3 | 1.9 to 2.8 | |
| 5.7 to 6.0 |
Common Calculations
| Stiffness to Weight: Axial, points | 14 to 32 | |
| 19 |
| Stiffness to Weight: Bending, points | 52 to 83 | |
| 33 to 34 |
| Strength to Weight: Axial, points | 6.4 to 32 | |
| 19 to 22 |
| Strength to Weight: Bending, points | 13 to 42 | |
| 21 to 23 |
| Thermal Diffusivity, mm2/s | 0.79 to 1.1 | |
| 0.73 to 1.8 |
| Thermal Shock Resistance, points | 5.1 to 33 | |
| 15 to 19 |