- Author
- Pimienta, P. J. P. | Garboczi, E. J. | Carter, W. C.
- Title
- Cellular Automation Algorithm for Surface Mass Transport Due to Curvature Gradients: Simulations of Sintering.
- Coporate
- National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD
- Journal
- Computational Materials Science, Vol. 1, 63-77, 1992
- Keywords
- algorithms | mass transport | gradients | simulation | microstructural development | sintering
- Abstract
- A cellular automation algorithm is developed that simulates the evolution of a surface due to surface mass transport. The driving force is the reduction of chemical potential differences on the surface. This process is important in the development of microstructure during the sintering of powders. The algorithm is implemented in 2D in a digital image mode, using discrete pixels to represent continuum objects. The heart of the algorithm is a pixel-counting-based method for computing the potential at a pixel located in a digital surface. This method gives an approximate measure of the curvature at the given surface pixel. The continuum version of this method is analytically shown to give the true curvature at a point on a continuum surface. The digital version of the curvature computation method is shown to obey the scaling laws derived for the continuum version. Several examples, both quantitative and qualitative, are computed of surfaces evolving under curvature differences, and are shown to agree with the known physics of sintering.