Joseph Sambasene Diatta¹, Andrey Maximenko², Ifeanyichukwu Donald Olumor³, Geuntak Lee³, Eugene A. Olevsky³; ¹Assane Seck University, SENEGAL, ²National Academy of Sciences, ³San Diego State University

Spark plasma sintering (SPS) of thermoelectric materials showed that a significant temperature gradient can be formed between the top and bottom surfaces of the processed specimen. Resulting microstructural heterogeneity modifies the final mechanical properties of the sintered material. It is known that contacts between boron carbide specimen and graphite tooling demonstrate strong Peltier effect.This study evaluates numerically temperature and density heterogeneities in SPS of boron carbide specimen due to Peltier and Seebeck thermoelectric effects. An electro-thermo-mechanical model of SPS process which takes into account the thermoelectric effects has been developed via COMSOL Multiphysics, a commercial finite element software. A grain growth law is integrated in the numerical model. Experimental values of the microstructure obtained by high resolution SEM (UHR-SEM) are close to those obtained numerically.