Polycrystalline Materials

Synthesis Performance and Applications. Polycrystalline materials, both dense and porous, are traditionally fabricated from ceramic, metal or composite powders via powder technology routes that include shaping and sintering steps. During shaping a compact body is formed from the granular raw material, while sintering leads to strengthening of this compact and coarsening. In this collection, the authors summarize the basic concepts and classical models used for describing solid state sintering processes. Following a brief introduction, in the second section a historical overview of early sintering theory is given,