Geometrical Monte Carlo model of liquid-phase sintering

Liquid-phase sintering (LPS) is an industrial process used to consolidate materials composed of two different kinds of metallic and/or ceramic powders. At constant temperature, the amount of the present liquid-phase is constant. However, the shape of particles of solid phase changes over time. In general, the rounding of particles and the growth of big particles at the expense of the small ones are observed. This process is known as Ostwald ripening.In this work, we propose a Monte Carlo (MC) model to simulate the microstructural evolution during LPS. The discretizing elements of the system, namely the voxels, change state between solid and liquid, according to previously defined melting and solidification probability distribution functions (PDFs). The generated PDFs take into account the geometrical characteristics of the system particles in terms of number of solid neighbours that surround a randomly chosen voxel.The geometrical MC model that we present is able to reproduce the Ostwald ripening behaviour and, in particular, matches the case in which the process occurs limited by the attachment/detachment of the solid phase to/from the surface of the particle.