Thermal Characteristic Simulation of Spark Plasma Sintering (SPS) Process for Fabrication of Ruthenium Target Material

摘要

In this study, we have demonstrated that the Marc v.11 simulation program, based on heat transfer, was able to estimate the thermal distribution of a graphite mold and sintered compact, for sintering a Ruthenium (Ru) target material. The thermal distribution simulation analysis was conducted as a function of setting temperatures to obtain basic thermal behaviors, and to determine whether physical properties such as the density, grain size and compactness of the sintered Ru target material were influenced by temperature distribution in the graphite mold. It was found that a very small difference in temperature between the center and edge of the sintered compact could be observed at the simulation temperature of 1200 degrees C. The highest relative density of 99.1% was achieved when the Ru target material was sintered at 1200 degrees C by spark plasma sintering(SPS). Also, it was confirmed that the grain size of the sintered Ru target was considerably increased with increasing sintering temperature, in spite of the fast heating rate and short dwell time. From these results, a very meaningful thermal characteristic simulation technique was confirmed that can predict the optimized conditions needed to obtain high quality sintered materials prior to SPS process.