A Unified Approach to Analytical and Numerical Modelling of Sintering

This paper presents a unified framework to model the sintering process of fine powders. The framework is based on classical virtual power principle and its corresponding variational principle. Firstly, the classical models of solid state, viscous and liquid phase sintering are reproduced assuming single matter re‐distribution mechanism and using the virtual power principle as the starting point. Then we demonstrate how to obtain the governing equations for microstructural evolution using the variational principle. These provide a common thread through the existing sintering models. Finally a numerical solution scheme is briefly outlined for computer simulation of microstructural evolution using the variational principle as the starting point. The computer simulation can follow the entire sintering process from powder compact to fully dense solid and deal with fully couple multi‐physics processes involving all the possible underlying matter re‐distribution mechanisms. Several examples are provided to demonstrate the deep insights that can be gained into the sintering process by using the numerical tool.