Thermal-electrical-mechanical simulation of the nickel densification by Spark Plasma Sintering. Comparison with experiments

Abstract Spark Plasma Sintering is a non-conventional process of the powder metallurgy field which uses a high electrical current to rapidly produce fully dense materials. In the present paper, a thermal-electrical-mechanical model developed on ABAQUS Software is proposed to simulate the densification of a nickel disk. A compaction model, studied in [Wolff, C., Mercier, S., Couque, H., Molinari, A., 2012. Modeling of conventional hot compaction and spark plasma sintering based on modified micromechanical models of porous materials. Mechanics of Materials 49 (0), 72–91. URL http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167663611002195 ], has been used to reproduce the densification of t…