Cellular automata simulations of the sintering behavior of ceramics driven by surface energy reduction

A cellular automata model has been developed to study the sintering behavior of ceramic particles. In this model, the only physical rule that drives the evolution of the system is to reduce the energy at the interface between the mass cells and the void cells. The meaning of several computational parameters, such as particle size or computational temperature, were investigated. Experiments of partial sintering of spherical particles of silica were performed and it was verified that this model successfully mimics the neck formation. Moreover, other experimental evidences of the stages of the densification, such as the formation of the intermediate vermicular microstructure or the dependence of porosity with temperature, were also qualitatively simulated.