2023-06-252023-06-25https://tore.tuhh.de/handle/11420/16585Sintering is a key processing step for manufacturing powder metallurgy-based products used in innumerable applications, including devices for upcoming sustainable energy scenarios as fuel cells, solar cells and electrolyser cell, and also for traditional ceramics such as cements and tiles. Sintering at high heating rates is based on a fast formation of a dense outer layer, which controls the further flux of heat to the interior of the compact. Thereby, the amount of energy available for sintering is enhanced and densification without extensive grain growth becomes easier. The economic and environmental benefit of fast sintering is related to lower quantity of demanded energy and produced emissions. Nevertheless, the influence of composition, heat transfer and sintering atmosphere is still to be fully understood. Thus, modelling and simulation of powder materials subjected to fast sintering can clarify the effects of phase evolution, sample size and geometry on the densification of ceramic bodies. Modeling and simulation of sintering generally refers to different approaches not only including distortion calculations, morphology issues or stress distribution in the sintering body but also simulating microstructural evolution, mainly densification. However, the current models for densification during sintering do not follow strictly the experimental data. Moreover, available sintering data, even for the same material, are just useful for the very specific experimental settings. Hence, the common practice is to determine experimentally the appropriate conditions to meet the requirements. Thus, there is a lack of a practical model able to predict densification of powder-based materials from sintering data of widely used ceramic materials. The focus of the project is to develop models and calculation approaches for modeling the densification step of ceramic powder sintering, particularly at high heating rates and short treatment times, predicting microstructure evolution and defects. Modeling particles rearrangement and densification will be performed using Discrete Element Model (DEM) which will be coupled to grid-based model for calculation of liquid transport. Moreover, this project aims to validate the model by designing ceramic materials by fast sintering associated with selected literature experimental data in order to verify the domain of the model in forecasting the behaviour of widely used ceramics.