Consolidation and Forming of Colloidal Ceramics Ceramics are normally made by consolidating powders followed by densification at higher temperatures. Colloids provide a good way to manipulate the interparticle interactions and hence the plasticity and the rigidity of the suspensions for consolidation and forming. Superconductivity Superconducting arrays can be made of small grains of lead, for example, embedded in a normal metal or insulator host, which will act to couple the grains. The newly discovered high-Tc superconducting materials behave very much like a disordered superconducting array and are the realization of such gauge glasses. As polymers are increasingly used in materials processing, there is a need to look into the interfaces between the polymer system and the solid phases.
Computer simulations are especially suitable for such studies.
Our previous results showed that the model we have developed is capable for studying adsorption or depletion of polymers at the interface under a wide range of conditions. As more materials require fine microstructures in the nanometer range, the effect microstructures play an increasingly important role in sintering. To fully take into account the effect of microstructures on sintering, the goal is to simulate sintering with a microscopic model that has been previously developed.