Application of Quantitative Metallography to the Analysis of Grain Growth During Liquid-Phase Sintering
SourceDuring liquid-phase sintering of iron/copper and various other systems, particle contacts involving grain boundaries with low energy, that is, with large dihedral angles, were frequently observed. By means of electron channeling pattern investigations on a copper/silver system, such low-energy grain boundaries were proved to be low-indexed coincidence boundaries. With the assumption that particle coalescence following the low-energy boundary formation mainly contributes to particle growth, the growth behaviors were treated generally on a statistical basis and then correlated with the special case of iron/copper. Average particle sizes and particle size distributions were calculated and compared with experimental results. It was found that coalescence contributes significantly to particle growth.