Compaction Behavior of Several Ceramic Powders

Abstract

The compaction behavior of four ceramic powders of widely different hardness but of essentially the same particle‐size fraction (nominally 44 to 62μ) was examined by measuring the travel of a laboratory hydraulic press. The results revealed that the softer powders yielded a greater fractional volume compaction at a given pressure. An account of compaction by two largely independent probabilistic processes, the filling of large holes and the filling of small pores, led to an expression for the fractional volume compaction, , in terms of applied pressure image which, with the proper choice of coefficients, a t and k t , was found to be adequate to describe the behavior of all the powders.