Modeling of the plasma sintering process at reduced pressures

Numerical simulation of the thermal behavior of sintering specimen under RF plasma conditions at reduced pressure is considered. A two-dimensional approach is adopted for describing flow, temperature, and electromagnetic fields in the reactor with appropriate boundary conditions. Slip boundary conditions are imposed for the velocity field at the sample surface and at the wall of the reactor, and corresponding jump boundary conditions are specified for the temperature field. Simple kinetic theory is employed for the calculation of the heat flux from the plasma to the specimen. The so-called capture-radiative-cascade model is adopted for ionization and recombination processes. The results indicate that ion-electron surface recombination is the dominant heat transfer mechanism to the sintering specimen under reduced pressure conditions.