Revealing process and material parameter effects on densification via phase-field studies

TL;DR

This paper uses phase-field modeling to study how process and material parameters affect densification and microstructure evolution during sintering, including stress effects and the entire freeze-casting process.

Contribution

It introduces a phase-field approach to simulate concurrent densification, grain growth, stress influence, and the full freeze-casting process chain.

Findings

Stress impacts densification and microstructure evolution.

The phase-field model accurately predicts microstructural changes.

First simulation of the entire freeze-casting process chain.

Abstract

Sintering is an important processing step in both ceramics and metals processing. The microstructure resulting from this process determines many materials properties of interest. Hence the accurate prediction of the microstructure, depending on processing and materials parameters, is of great importance. The phase-field method offers a way of predicting this microstructural evolution on a mesoscopic scale. The present paper employs this method to investigate concurrent densification and grain growth and the influence of stress on densification. Furthermore, the method is applied to simulate the entire freeze-casting process chain for the first time ever by simulating the freezing and sintering processes separately and passing the frozen microstructure to the present sintering model.