The objective of this study is to reveal the sintering mechanism of mixed Ti-6Al-4V powders considering the densification and the homogenization between Ti and Al/V particles. It is found that the addition of master alloy particles into Ti enhances densification by the migration of Al into the Ti matrix prior to the self-diffusion of Ti. However, as Ti particles become coarser, sintering of the powders appears to be retarded due to slower inter-diffusion of the particles due to the reduced surface energies of Ti. Such phenomena are confirmed by a series of dilatometry tests and microstructural analyses in respect to the sintering temperature. Furthermore, the results are also consistent with the predicted activation energies for sintering. The energies are found to have decreased from 299.35 to 135.48 kJ·mol-1 by adding the Al/V particles because the activation energy for the diffusion of Al in α-Ti (77 kJ·mol-1) is much lower than that of the self-diffusion of α-Ti. The coarser Ti powders increase the energies from 135.48 to 181.16 kJ·mol-1 because the specific surface areas of Ti decrease.

The sintering mechanisms of nanoscale copper powders have been investigated. A molecular dynamics (MD) simulation with the embedded-atom method (EAM) was employed for these simulations. The dimensional changes for initial-stage sintering such as characteristic lengths, neck growth, and neck angle were calculated to understand the densification behavior of copper nano-powders. Factors affecting sintering such as the temperature, powder size, and crystalline misalignment between adjacent powders have also been studied. These results could provide information of setting the processing cycles and material designs applicable to nano-powders. In addition, it is expected that MD simulation will be a foundation for the multi-scale modeling in sintering process.