DENSIFICATION AND GRAIN-GROWTH OF POROUS ALUMINA COMPACTS

Desification and grain growth of porous alumina compacts during various high-temperature processes were investigated. Experimental data were obtained for densification and grain growth of alumina powder during hot pressing. A set of constitutive equations was proposed based on the constitutive equations was proposed based on the constitutive equations by Helle et Al.(1) for hydrostatic response and by Rahaman et al.(2) for deviatoric response. Theoretical results from the proposed constitutive equations were compared with various experimental data for alumina powder compacts in the literature, including pressureless sintering, sinter forging, and hot pressing. The proposed model well predicts the densification and grain growth of alumina compacts.