Densification during Sintering in the Presence of a Liquid Phase. I. Theory

The driving force leading to densification during sintering in the presence of a liquid phase and the material transport phenomena have been analyzed and relationships for the densification rate during the rearrangement process, the solution-precipitation process, and the final coalescence process have been determined. These relationships allow an experimental determination of the mechanism of sintering in the presence of a liquid phase on the basis of the time, particle size and temperature dependence of the densification rate. In addition, they allow direct calculations of densification rates to be made for certain simple systems for which property data are available.