CAREER: Continuum Modeling of Sintering

烧结是粉末和多孔材料固结的重要工艺过程，用于从电子电路生产到大型模具制造的各个领域。 连续体方法能够预测烧结下的形状变形和密度分布，这在建模粉末材料的净成形加工中是至关重要的，包括传统的粉末热加工和新颖的领域，如激光，微波和等离子体烧结。 从而成功地解决了粉末处理中最重要的问题之一-尺寸控制。 目前在这一领域开展了大量的研究活动，但在以下几个方面缺乏努力：（1）考虑烧结连续模型中材料微观结构特征的不同层次物理尺度的建模;（2）考虑相变等附加因素;（3）烧结稳定性的预测和烧结损伤标准的发展。职业计划的教育部分包括本科生和研究生课程的发展，包括编写烧结物理和力学教科书，该教科书将结合联合收割机三个主要学校（美国，东欧和西欧）烧结科学。

Sintering is an important technological process of powder and porous material consolidation used in various fields of manufacturing ranging from electronic circuit production to large-scale tooling. The continuum approach enables prediction of shape distortions and density distributions under sintering which are critical in modeling net-shape processing of powder materials including both conventional powder thermoprocessing and novel areas such as laser, microwave, and plasma sintering. Thereby one of the most important problems of powder treatment - dimension control - can be successfully resolved. A considerable amount of research activity is presently taking place in this area but there is a lack of effort in the following directions which will be the focus of the present research: (1) modeling at different hierarchical physical scales taking into consideration material micro-structure characteristics in continuum models of sintering; (2) taking into account additional factors such as phase transformations; (3) prediction of sintering stability and development of sintering damage criteria.The educational part of the career program incorporates the development of undergraduate and graduate courses including the preparation of a textbook on physics and mechanics of sintering which will combine theoretical concepts developed in three major schools (U.S., Eastern and Western European) of science of sintering.