SPARK PLASMA SINTERING (FAST/SPS) OF NOVEL MATERIALS - TAKING THE NEXT STEP FORWARD TO INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION

摘要

State-of-the-art spark plasma sintering technology - called FAST/SPS - offers rapid consolidation of a wide range of powders from all fields of ceramic and metallic materials, enabling significantly improved or even completely novel materials. This was shown very frequently in the last decades, resulting in a huge amount of scientific papers, which report promising results at almost all times. But the main part of reported applications of FAST/SPS are still in the area of material development, although more than enough opportunities for an industrial implementation were generated. Taking the next step forward to an industrial production of novel materials by FAST/SPS is currently highly dependent on the availability of suitable equipment. After a short overview of the FAST/SPS technology this paper explains the most important industrial production requirements, which has to be fulfilled by the FAST/SPS equipment. Subsequently examples for industrial applications will be presented, concluded by a preview of future developments.