A two-stage approach for material parameters identification in spark plasma sintering

A fully coupled electrical-thermo-mechanical model is essential to an in-depth understanding of the spark plasma sintering (SPS) process, where the mechanical modeling is heavily dependent on the constitutive equations and their material parameters. This paper proposes a two-stage approach that integrates direct experimental measurements with numerical simulations, providing a more comprehensive and reliable basis for identifying the material parameters in SPS. We develop a finite element-based fully coupled process model in COMSOL Multiphysics (R) and validate it experimentally. The parameter identification procedure achieves an average prediction error below 1.5% when applied to copper and nickel SPS at different heating rates from 25 to 100 K/min. This robust numerical-experimental approach establishes a transferable technique that can be used for other materials commonly used in SPS.

Automated summary

This paper presents a two-stage approach that integrates direct experimental measurements with numerical simulations, providing a more comprehensive and reliable basis for identifying material parameters in spark plasma sintering (SPS) process. The authors develop a finite element-based fully coupled process model and validate it experimentally. By applying their parameter identification procedure to copper and nickel SPS at different heating rates, the authors achieved an average prediction error below 1.5%. This robust numerical-experimental approach can be used for other commonly used materials in SPS.