Application of collector pressing method to manufacture various optically transparent oxide ceramics using SPS technique

The comparative analysis of two pressing methods such as conventional uniaxial pressing and the collector one was carried out to manufacture optically transparent oxide ceramics of various compositions. The finite element modeling of the consolidation processes was carried out for various kinematic schemes of movement of mold shaping members taking into account the simulation of thermal treatment at sintering. The uniaxial pressing with following free sintering and Spark Plasma Sintering (SPS) techniques were considered for the modeling. The simulation results showed that the SPS technique usage with a uniaxial pressing method allows to decrease the nonuniformity of density distribution over the volume of ceramics. In case of SPS usage with a collector pressing method the density distribution is almost uniform. The influence of the pre-pressing method at SPS on the mechanical and optical properties of the oxide transparent ceramics has been studied experimentally. The efficiency of using the collector pressing in the SPS process has been confirmed for YAG:Ce3+, ZrO2 -Y2O3 (YSZ) and MgAl2O4 ceramics.