A discrete model for long time sintering

Among the interesting results is the observation that the coordination number, even though it has the tendency to increase, sometimes slightly decreases, whereas the density continuously increases during sintering-this is interpreted as an indicator of reorganization effects in the packing. Another result of this study is the finding that strongly attractive contacts occur during cool-down of the sample and leave a sintered block of material with almost equally strong attractive and repulsive contact forces.