Abstract
The initial sintering process of tungsten powder compacts was studied. The compacts consist of various mixtures of coarse, medium and fine powders. The dependencies of linear shrinkage upon particle size, sintering time etc. are in good agreement with the model of "bulk diffusion" proposed by Kingery, Berg and Coble. Especially, the shrinkage. of the ternary mixture compacts are well explained by the model, however, the shrinkage of coarser powder compacts whose mixing ratios of coarse/fine are greater than 7/3 are not so well. The activation energy for the sintering process is about 86, 000 cal mol-1.
