Investigation on temperature-gradient-driven effects in unconventional sintering via non-isothermal phase-field simulation

Authors: YangyiweiYang, Timileyin David Oyedeji, Patrick Kühn and Bai-Xiang Xu

There are still debates regarding effects driven by temperature gradient (∇T) during unconventional sintering, such as field assistant sintering technology and selective laser sintering, with existent analytical tools insufficient to reflect in-process features. In this work we propose a brand-new approach to investigate ∇T-driven effects during unconventional sintering via non-isothermal phase-field simulations. 2D and 3D simulations on sintering of yttria-stabilized zirconia micro-particles not only reproduce well features investigated by analytical models, but also discover new in-process phenomena, e.g. ∇T-induced coalescence of identical particles, and reveal potential competitions between thermophoresis and Ficktian diffusion.

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