LINEARIZATION OF MASTER SINTERING CURVE

Abstract

The master sintering curve (MSC) is a simple and functional sinter model that is used to describe the densification of a particulate material during sintering when one sintering mechanism is dominant. Usually the MSC is expressed mathematically by a sigmoid relationship between the natural logarithm of the work of sintering and the relative density. The work of sintering is an integral term that includes the time and temperature path followed by the material during sintering as well as the apparent activation energy for densification of the material. In this work, the sigmoid form of the MSC is linearized by relating the natural logarithm of the work of sintering to the densification parameter. Linearization of the MSC simplifies the characterization of the model parameters. This is illustrated by example of different powder metal systems, showing how the linearized MSC model parameters can be easily determined directly from the plotted experimental data.