Pressure controlled micro-viscous deformation assisted spark plasma sintering of Fe-based bulk amorphous alloy

In this paper, the theoretical framework of viscous flow deformation is presented as a model to investigate the inherent role of applied pressure in the densification of Fe-based amorphous alloy powder during spark plasma sintering. The proposed model revealed that the evolution of the structural geometry of the powder compact resulted in an amplification of the applied pressure to a larger contact pressure. The resulting pressure controlled compressive viscous flow deformation of the particles exhibited the contribution of increased applied pressure towards enhancement of densification and thus confirmed the validity of the present model for analyzing pressure-assisted sintering of amorphous alloy powder. The application of this theoretical model correctly predicted the trend of increasing final density of the compacts with pressure while further improvement on its accuracy can be attained upon establishment of the relative contribution of mass flow and deformation of powder particles towards their consolidation.