The Effect of Design Parameters of a Production Unit on the Temperature Drop in a Sample During High-Speed Sintering under Pressure

Abstract

The computer simulation of the temperature field in the working cell of the production unit during high-speed sintering under pressure of boron carbide powder samples is performed by the finite elements method. Consideration is given to the dependence of the thermophysical properties of a powder sample on the porosity and temperature. In order to minimize the temperature drop in the powder sample, the effect of the working cell design on the temperature drop in the sample is studied by computational modeling. Based on the computational experiments, the working cell design of the unit for high-speed sintering under pressure has been optimized and the heating conditions have been selected such that the sample sintering temperature of 2000°C is reached within 80 to 150 s and the temperature drop in the sample during the holding period for 100–150 s is within 50–30 deg. The laboratory experiments have revealed that the optimized working cell design provides an almost uniform distribution of microhardness in the sintered product.