Plastic Flow During Hot‐Pressing

The contribution of plastic flow to overall densification of a powder compact during hot‐pressing was analyzed by incorporating the creep characteristics of materials at high temperatures into an equation applicable to hot‐pressing conditions. When the particles are assumed to be spherical and when the effective stress acting at the points of contact under axial loading conditions is taken into consideration, the final form of the equation is: image where α 1 and β are geometric constants which can be calculated from the packing geometry, A and n are material constants, D is the relative density of the compact, and R is the radius of the spheres at any stage of deformation in arbitrary units. Computerized plots of D vs t were obtained for several materials. Experimental verification of these plots using hot‐pressing data for Pb‐2% Sb, Ni, and Al 2 O 3 spheres and coarse irregular Al 2 O 3 particles showed that the experimental data fitted the theoretical prediction for orthorhombic packing well. A large deviation with respect to the initial packing density was encountered with very fine irregular Al 2 O 3 powder, although its densification behavior with time was similar to that of the coarse particles.