Temperature Control in Spark Plasma Sintering: An FEM Approach

Powder consolidation assisted by pulsed current and uniaxial pressure, namely, Spark Plasma Sintering (SPS), is increasingly popular. One limitation however lies in the difficulty of controlling the sample temperature during compaction. The aim of this work is to present a computational method for the assembly temperature based on the finite elements method (FEM). Computed temperatures have been compared with experimental data for three different dies filled with three materials with different electrical conductivities (TiAl, SiC, Al2O3). The results obtained are encouraging: the difference between computed and experimental values is less than 5%. This allows thinking about this FEM approach as a predictive tool for selecting the right control temperatures in the SPS machine.