MECHENG 599-03 Final Project:
Simulating tin dioxide and gold nanoparticle sintering using finite element method
Carlos Perez, Stephen Walton, James Wiswall and Smitesh Bakrania

Abstract
Combustion synthesized nanoparticles can exhibit significant sintering between primary particles. This work looks at tin dioxide sintering in the presence of gold nanoparticles as dopants; using finite element approach to model interface migration and diffussion. A comparative study of the tin dioxide and gold sintering shows that gold sinters far more rapidly than tin dioxide. Analytical calculations reveal large descrepancy between the simulation results and the surface diffusion calculations for both systems. A Matlab program was written for the simulation and is provided for further developement.
(April 22nd, 2005)