Abstract
Many sintering bodies shrink in an anisotropic manner when the particle packing is not isotropic. In the continuum mechanics frame work, macroscopic shrinkage in sintering is described as a linear function of the sintering stress tensor and the viscosity tensor. These macroscopic quantities are determined rigorously from local microstructure and microscopic kinetics involving grain boundary diffusion. The shrinkage is driven by the hydrostatic component of the sintering stress tensor, while the anisotropic deformation is driven by its deviatoric components. This model is able to predict both the evolution of the anisotropic microstructure during sintering, and also the effect of the local microstructure on anisotropic shrinkage.
