Clearly, sintering in the presence

Clearly, sintering in the presence of a liquid phase is a complicated process involving various phenomena which can occur simultaneously. The study conducted here will focus on modelling of the mechanical response of a powder system in the initial rearrangement stage of liquid phase sintering, i.e., the stage where liquid phase has formed and solid dissolution and atomic diffusion are negligible in the powder system. In this stage, the capillary forces between neighboring particles are the driving forces for the densification. The major mechanisms that bring about this density change are the relative motion of particles which slide over one another and pull closer because of the attractive capillary forces, and the liquid flow resulting from the squeeze of the neighboring particles that move towards each other.