Method for producing zirconia sintered body

A method for producing a zirconia sintered body, comprising:

• heating a zirconia molded body or a zirconia pre-sintered body, where the heating comprises a temperature increasing step, and a rate of temperature increase in a temperature region from a temperature at which the zirconia molded body or a zirconia pre-sintered body starts to shrink to a temperature at which the zirconia molded body or a zirconia pre-sintered body finishes shrinking in the temperature increasing step is adjusted to enable the zirconia molded body or the zirconia pre-sintered body to shrink at a substantially constant rate across the temperature region during the temperature increase in each of a plurality of zones of when the temperature region is evenly divided into the plurality of zones of specific temperature ranges,
• wherein the rate of temperature increase in each zone is set to 0.1 to 1.0 times an acceptable rate of temperature increase in each zone calculated from the formula (1) below, and a ratio of the rate of temperature increase in each zone to the acceptable rate of temperature increase in each zone is substantially the same,
• (Acceptable rate of temperature increase in each zone)=(maximum rate of temperature increase of furnace)/(coefficient of shrinkage of each zone) (1),
• wherein the coefficient of shrinkage of each zone in formula (1) is represented by the following formula (2),
• (Coefficient of shrinkage of each zone)=(shrinkage rate difference of each zone)/(temperature range/100) (2),
• wherein the formula (1) is solved by assuming that the coefficient of shrinkage of each zone is 1 when the coefficient of shrinkage of each zone calculated using formula (2) is less than 1,
• wherein the shrinkage rate difference of each zone is the difference between the shrinkage rate at the start temperature and end temperature of each zone.