Computer Simulation of the Initial Stage Sintering of Particles.

Computer simulation of the sintering process was tried to understand the effect of sintering conditions on sintering behavior. The proposed simulation method involves major transport mechanism in the initial-stage sintering process: surface diffusion, volume diffusion, evaporation-condensation, and grain-boundary diffusion.Moreover, this method can be applied to the simulation of sintering behavior for different size particles. The sintering experiment was performed with spherical copper particles in contact. The sintering particles were observed by SEM, and the neck growths were measured by SEM pictures. The simulated neck growth agreed well with the experimental ones.It is possible to analyze the material transfer of the sintering process by this simulation and to determine the best condition for sintering.