In this research, to see the effects of temperature on the grain growth during sintering in the spark plasma sintering process, the grain growth associated with sintering temperatures are simulated by the Monte Carlo Method (MCM) and the Finite Element Method (FEM) for the ceramic material, Al2O3.The spark plasma sintering process produces ceramics that are sintered at high temperatures with high energy and cooled rapidly in a short time. The grain growth at the center of the sintered body is different from that in the boundary between the carbon die and sintered body. This phenomenon is explained by the fact that the grain growth during the sintering is mainly affected by heat conduction in the sintered body. For verifying the dependency on heat conduction, the temperature distribution in the sintered body was first found. Based on the temperature distribution, the grain growth in Al2O3 in the interior and at the exterior interface with the die at sintering temperatures of 1450ºC and 1650ºC are simulated and compared with those observed in SEM micrographs. The grain growth results numerically simulated by MCM seem to agree well with those experimentally observed by SEM.

Keywords: Ceramic Sintering Process, Al2O3, Finite Element Method, Monte Carlo Method, Grain Growth, Computer Simulation