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Individual toughening mechanisms affects remarkably the fracture resistance of ceramics. The role of stress-induced martensitic transformation of zirconia particles in the alumina/zirconia material system has been investigated experimentally. The fracture response of the several particulate alumina/zirconia composites was determined according to two techniques. A FE-based model of a propagating fracture in a model microstructure of transforming particles is presented. As the predicted influence of zirconia volume fraction is compared with the experimental evidence, it appears that zirconia transformation mechanism alone cannot explain the measured fracture toughness.