Computer Simulation of Final-Stage Sintering: II, Influence of Initial Pore Size

A two-dimensional Monte Carlo simulation procedure has been used to investigate the effect of the initial pore size on the microstructural evolution and the kinetics of final-stage sintering. The sintering time scales with r 40/ Dgb and the grain-growth time scales with r 2O/ Dm . Pores are found to effectively pin the grain boundaries from the beginning of final-stage sintering at a porosity of Φ= 0.09 until Φ= 0.03. For Φ 0.03, the remaining pores do not effectively retard grain-boundary migration and normal grain growth occurs. Small pores were found to be less effective at retarding grain growth than expected on the basis of a simple grain-growth pinning model. The mean pore size was found to be nearly constant throughout the simulations.