FINITE ELEMENT SIMULATION OF THERMAL AND ELECTRICAL FIELDS IN FIELD ACTIVATION SINTERING Jing Zhang 1 , Antonios Zavaliangos 1 , Martin Kraemer 2 and Joanna Groza 2 1 Drexel University Department of Materials Engineering Philadelphia, PA 19104 2 University of California, Davis, Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science Davis, CA 95616 ABSTRACT Sintering aided by pulsed electrical current offers the advantage of accelerated densification for a variety of powders. In this work, we employ numerical simulations in order to understand the distributions of current and temperature within the punch/die/specimen assembly. A thermal-electrical model with temperature and density dependent thermal and electrical properties is implemented in finite element software. An equivalent lumped resistance network model is proposed. The role of resistivity and height of specimen is discussed. In addition, the issue of contact resistances between punches and die is also addressed. Application of this model for field activated sintering of alumina is presented here. INTRODUCTION Field activation sintering technique (FAST) belongs to a family of manufacturing techniques that produce sintered parts from powder via the application of electric field [1, 2]. Numerous experiments have been carried out for conductive [3-5] and non-conductive powders [5-7]. Some attractive characteristics of this technique are observed in experiments, namely, short overall cycle time, minimization of grain growth, and indications of improved mechanical properties. To achieve a better control of processing and provide the guideline for tool design, numerical simulations for the process are being necessary. In this paper we focus our attention on the distribution of electric current and the resulting temperature field. Of interest to this work are the numerical simulations of Mori [8] and Fessler [9]. In [8], this problem was considered under the restrictive assumption that all current flows through the specimen. In [9], Fessler simulated electroconsolidation, a process in which the specimen is immersed into a bed of electrically conductive graphite particles which also serve as pressure-transmitting medium in a die chamber.