Sintering of bi-layered porous structures: Stress development and shape evolution

Ce_0.9Gd_0.1O_1.95 (CGO) and (La, Sr)MnO₃ (LSM) are electro-ceramics materials with high potential for several electrochemical applications such as solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC), gas separation membranes, and flue gas purification application. In the latter case, these materials are shaped as thick porous layers and sintered by co-firing process. In this work, porous CGO and LSM/CGO single layers were prepared by tape casting, and CGO-LSM/CGO bi-layer structures were obtained by lamination. The shrinkage characteristics of individual layers were measured by optical dilatometry and the uniaxial viscosity of layers was determined as a function of temperature and density using a vertical sintering approach. The distortion in the bi-layer configurations was experimentally recorded and compared with the analytical calculations. The sintering mismatch stress was calculated from both the camber development and linear strain rate mismatch, which showed a good agreement.