As shown in Figure 66.2: Temperatures Over Time, the loaded temperature increases from 60℃ to 1380℃, then drops back to 60℃. At temperatures >1000℃, the sintering process is activated, and the body begins to shrink. The entire solution is obtained in three steps:
The first step, solved with 25 fixed substeps, occurs from 0 to 700 minutes, where temperatures are <1000℃ and the sintering process is not yet activated.
The second step, solved with 250 substeps, occurs from 700 minutes to 1200 minutes with temperatures >1000℃ and sintering active.
As with the first step, the last step is solved with 25 fixed substeps, occurring from 1200 minutes to 1400 minutes with no sintering.
Without specific instructions, the solver uses the default maximum allowed equivalent viscous strain increment per time step (CUTCONTROL,VSLIMIT) of 0.01.