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Abstract
The objective of the present study was to demonstrate that heating microscopy can be used to investigate the deformation of layered materials during sintering. Three composite systems with layered microstructure were prepared using borosilicate glass matrix and vanadium particles as the inclusion phase. The sintering shrinkage of cylindrical compacts was recorded in axial and radial directions. As expected, sintering was impaired with increasing concentration of vanadium particles. A shrinkage anisotropy factor was determined based on experimental measurements and its evolution during sintering for each sample was discussed. In samples containing three layers with different volume fractions of vanadium inclusions, similar densification was observed in the bottom layer with maximum concentration of inclusions (30 vol.-%) and in the top layer with minimum concentration (2 vol.-%). This indicates that sintering anisotropy of the samples is dependent not only on the composition, but also on the position arrangement of the layers in the sintering part. The results show that heating microscopy is a simple technique which can be used to support the design and fabrication of layered (and by extension functionally graded) materials. Smart choice of composition, dimension and position of the sample in the furnace during sintering should lead to adequate control or prediction of the final sintered shape.