Unveiling Spark Plasma Sintering High-Throughput Processing

摘要

Spark Plasma Sintering, and similar, technologies have been used in R&D and academia for compacting advanced ceramics, powder metals, and cermets for more than two decades. And SPS remains a highly sought-after research and development tool, because of its high speed processing, particle bonding attributes, and impressive material properties capabilities. Though there have been some attempts to apply this incredible technology to specific commercial projects, they remain largely unknown and are commonly veiled in a shroud of secrecy.This discussion is about removing the veil and looking closely at one detailed example of how SPS can be used commercially, today. We will review Thermal Technology LLC's High Throughput SPS process in detail and how it can be applied to a specific sputtering target application. We will detail throughput, operational costs, equipment costs, and touch on tooling design, and we'll break these expenses down to cost per part. We will also discuss some of the limitations of SPS with regard to commercial applications.