| Isothermal sintering and grain growth studies were carried out on pure hematite
cylindrical compacts at I006°, I 100° and I 200°C. The compaction pressures were kept at
7 I6, I074, I790, 2507 and 4297 kgfcm2 and sintering periods were 5, 10, 20, 30, 60 and
140 minutes. Very rapid initial sintering to the extent of 20-25% reduction in porosity was
observed within the first 5 minutes. Higher initial compaction pressures caused an increasing
degree of sintering but led to a very significant reduction in grain growth.
Existing model of isothermal sintering due to Coble which does not consider fabrication
factors such as compaction is unable to correlate the observed data. |
