Ceramic Sintering Process

Sintering is a ubiquitous processing step for manufacturing ceramics for a diverse set of applications.

Ceramic sintering process.

The sintering process in the ceramic composite is considered to be a solid state sintering process 18. Sintering is generally used in the manufacture of ceramic products however the process can be used to fashion metal glass and plastic objects as well as composites and alloys. While commonly related to powder processing of ceramic parts its important roles in other processes such as additive manufacturing nanotechnology and thin films are less commonly discussed. In general coarsening or grain growth occurs during sintering.

Sintering or frittage is the process of compacting and forming a solid mass of material by heat or pressure without melting it to the point of liquefaction. Usually this is done by a sintering process which is a consolidation and densification step of the granular compact through the action of heat. The sintering or firing process provides the energy to encourage the individual powder particles to bond or sinter together to remove the porosity present from the compaction stages. At the end of the sintering process the synthetic graphite powder was still in the powder form and was easy to remove from the sintered body.

The novel process can solve the problem of densification of the difficult to sinter ceramic materials providing an effective solution in preparing high density ceramic tools. During the sintering process the green compact shrinks by around 40 vol. Several authors extensively studied the sintering of zta composites. As long as the raw material for a particular product is in a powdered form the product can be sintered.

The driving force of sintering process is reduction of surface energy of the particles. Sintering happens naturally in mineral deposits or as a manufacturing process used with metals ceramics plastics and other materials the atoms in the materials diffuse across the boundaries of the particles fusing the particles. Full densification is achieved by sintering at temperatures up to 1800 c. Indeed the zta composites offer advantages over the monolithic alumina during sintering.