Abstract
The mechanism of particle coalescence during liquid phase sintering of Fe-Cu can be described as the contact formation between adjacent particles with a low energy grain boundary and the subsequent neck growth. By means of electron channeling pattern investigations on an analogous system Cu-Ag, such low energy grain boundaries are characterized by orientation relations corresponding to the coincidence-site relations. The particle growth behavior predicted by the coalescence principle agrees well with the experimental observations on Fe-Cu, suggesting a large contribution of coalescence to the particle growth.
