Fundamental investigations on the spark plasma sintering/synthesis process

Modeling and experimental analyses were carried out to investigate current and temperature distributions under typical spark plasma sintering (SPS) conditions. The simulation utilized two sample materials with widely differing electrical conductivities, alumina and copper. Current and heat generation gradients were evaluated in the radial and axial directions for both cases. Radial gradients result in significant differences in temperature between the surface of the graphite die and its center, in agreement with experimental measurements. Axial gradients are shown to influence the homogeneity of the product.