The strength of ground ceramics tends to be deteriorated due to the flaws induced by grinding process. And this strength degradation can be recovered by a short time heating method. Since the strength of ceramics is greatly related to the grain size, it can be considered that the strength degradation and the strength recovery of ground ceramics are strongly related to the grain size of ceramics. Therefore, in this study the relation between grain size of alumina ceramics and the strength degradation as well as the strength recovery was investigated experimentally. It was confirmed in this study that the strength degradation and the strength recovery are strongly related to the grain size. The experimental results indicate that the strength degradation and the strength recovery are more remarkable in the ceramics with small grain size than in the ceramics with large grain size. There exist a fine correlation between the strength degradation due to grinding process and the strength recovery via short time heating for the alumina ceramics with different grain size. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.