Abstract
A non-spherical glass particle relaxes to its equilibrium shape by viscous flow driven by capillarity at elevated temperatures. The virial method is applied to Stokes equation for studying the viscous sintering of an ellipsoidal particle. The spheroidization, or the retraction of the particle, is a result of anisotropic deformation driven by the deviatoric components of the sintering stress, which arises from the surface energy tensor. The moment of inertia tensor is a quantity that characterizes the morphology of aggregates of particles. The deviatoric components indicate the anisotropy of the aggregate, and its compactness is described by the isotropic component, i.e., the second moment of inertia, which is related to the radius of gyration. The equation of motion of the moment of inertia tensor is proposed for the sintering and coalescence of crystalline particles by bulk diffusion and surface diffusion.
