Improving Ceramic Processing Through the Application of Microstructure Mining

Microstructure mining aims to study material microstructures while embracing their complexity. The general steps in the microstructure mining method will be introduced in the context of ceramics processing and microstructure evolution in sintering. In particular, the methodology will be illustrated by the design of a new microstructural measurement called the effective diffusion distance. This parameter allows the experimental study of sintering microstructures using traditional kinetic models of sintering even when the microstructures are strongly aggregated. The limits of this approach will be discussed with respect to the scale of the aggregation relative to the size of the pores.