Field Assisted Sintering of Silicate Glass-Containing Alumina

Several studies have been carried out in the last years on Field Assisted Sintering of ceramic materials with the aim of reducing processing time and temperature. Most activities were focused on conductive or semiconductive materials whose sintering behavior resulted very much influenced by the application of an electrical field. Other resistive materials, like pure alumina, appeared to be much less sensitive to this consolidation technique. In this preliminary work, the behavior of 99.8% pure alumina was studied using isothermal and constant heating rate tests. The effect of a magnesium silicate glassy phase addition was also analyzed. The results show that both materials can be sintered at relatively lower temperature under the application of an electrical field although non-homogeneous structure are obtained. © 2016 by The American Ceramic Society. All rights reserved.