Comprehensive one-dimensional mathematical model of microwave sintering

Abstract

The use of microwaves to drive the materials manufacturing process of sintering has shown great potential as an efficient and green technology, but there remain various aspects of this highly complex and strongly coupled sequence of physical phenomena which warrant especially careful mathematical treatment. For the first time, we present a model of microwave sintering that accounts for the chain of physical phenomena, including the dependence of dielectric and thermal material properties on the relative density of the sample. A computational test simulating the microwave sintering of zirconia shows a level of shrinkage that is consistent with experimental data.