Maps of spreading during the initial stage of liquid-phase sintering

Based upon a thermodynamic approach, maps are constructed to study spreading during the initial stage of liquid-phase sintering. The maps are diagrams with contact angle as one axis and critical liquid-to-solid particle radius ratio as the other, showing the fields of spreading and no spreading. Separating the fields are contours of constant packing factor. The potentials of the maps are also explored. One use of the maps is to determine the contact angle between liquid binder and solid hard phases.