All-Materials-Inclusive Flash Spark Plasma Sintering

Abstract

A new flash (ultra-rapid) spark plasma sintering method applicable to various materials systems, regardless of their electrical resistivity, is developed. A number of powders ranging from metals to electrically insulative ceramics have been successfully densified resulting in homogeneous microstructures within sintering times of 8-35 s. A finite element simulation reveals that the developed method, providing an extraordinary fast and homogeneous heating concentrated in the sample's volume and punches, is applicable to all the different samples tested. The utilized uniquely controllable flash phenomenon is enabled by the combination of the electric current concentration around the sample and the confinement of the heat generated in this area by the lateral thermal contact resistance. The presented new method allows: extending flash sintering to nearly all materials, controlling sample shape by an added graphite die, and an energy efficient mass production of small and intermediate size objects. This approach represents also a potential venue for future investigations of flash sintering of complex shapes.

References in corpus (3)

• Inherent heating instability of direct microwave sintering process: Sample analysis for porous 3Y-ZrO2
• Fully coupled electromagnetic-thermal-mechanical comparative simulation of direct vs hybrid microwave sintering of 3Y-ZrO 2
• Proportional integral derivative, modeling and ways of stabilization for the spark plasma sintering process

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Microwave flash sintering of metal powders: From experimental evidence to multiphysics simulation
• Simultaneous Spark Plasma Sintering of Multiple Complex Shapes
• Electric current effects in spark plasma sintering: From the evidence of physical phenomenon to constitutive equation formulation
• Dielectric properties of flash spark plasma sintered BaTiO${}_3$ and CaCu${}_3$Ti${}_4$O${}_{12}$
• Energy efficient spark plasma sintering: Breaking the threshold of large dimension tooling energy consumption
• Graphite creep negation during flash spark plasma sintering under temperatures close to 2000${}^{\circ }$C