The shapes of first-stage sinters

Abstract
The shape of first-stage sinters is derived within a framework in which a solid skeleton is wetted by a mobile‘‘liquid’’ pool. Several lattices are considered as possible solid skeletons, corresponding to various degrees of surface versus grain boundary and volume transport; the effect of a nonzero dihedral angle at the interface between crystal faces is also treated. In some cases, significant differences exist between shapes calculated by minimizing the free energy and the shapes assumed by previous workers.