Hi everyone, sorry it has taken me so long to get back to you on this like I said I would, I've been traveling a lot in the last few weeks, along with trying to find the paper I thought I had gotten from someone years ago.
As it turns out, I could not find the paper. Ended up at the company last week for some projects and stopped in to our ceramic engineers office to talk zirconia and specifically to get this report. So here's the part where i eat a little crow. . .
I asked about getting the literature on the effect on CTE that blasting/grinding has on the CTE of zirconia, and got the deer in the headlights look from him. He then went on to explain that blasting/grinding does not have an effect on the CTE. It does cause the spontaneous crystal phase transformation and build stress in the zirconia which can have an effect on the way that layering ceramic bonds to the framework. The Regeneration Firing that we have in our furnaces and IFUs, (and I knew this correctly) does not get hot enough to reverse the crystal phase transformation (that would have to go to 1370C or higher),but does help to relieve the stress that is built up helping to prevent fractures of the layering ceramic.
I was told by a technician that is no longer with us that the CTE changes, and must have convinced myself that I had seen that papers confirming it. I'm sorry for the confusion, but definitely willing to admit when I'm wrong.