Powder metallurgy is a versatile technology for the manufacturing of components to (near) net-shape with high product quality. For a hardmetal (such as WC-Co) cold compaction of the powder to a “green body” is followed by liquid-phase sintering from the subsequent heating. This means that the binder metal Co is heated to melt in order to obtain sufficient mobility via capillary action, i.e., via surface traction, stemming from stored surface energy. The resulting flow causes gradual filling of the pore space and brings about a macroscopic shrinkage of the particle compact until a completely dense state is obtained, at least ideally. To model and quantitatively simulate the sintering process is a challenging task. The goal is to (i) estimate the final resulting quality (i.e., in terms of porosity) and (ii) to predict the final net shape and size of the sintered component.
