Open Access

Quantitative knowledge of liquid viscosity is of fundamental importance in many areas of materials synthesis and processing. However, the determination of viscosity often relies on specialized experimental equipment, offline experimentation, or invasive procedures, in particular when required in extreme conditions such as at high temperature, high pressure, and in confined or corrosive environments. Here, this study proposes and validates a fast and simple method that mimics the intuitive perception of liquid flow within a quantitative framework. For this, this study employs digital video observation to derive quantitative values of the shear viscosity of liquids, with high precision and rapid acquisition rates. The technique involves capturing liquid dynamics after minor mechanical stimulation. Processed imaging data are indexed by similarity and referenced to a digital database generated with a finite element model, from which values of viscosity are obtained in line. The approach is tested on water at room temperature and on a high‐temperature glass melt. Covering a viscosity range of four orders of magnitude, both yield convincing agreement with tabulated reference data at low computational cost.

Bulk elastic properties, hardness and fatigue of calcium aluminosilicate (CAS) glasses in the technically relevant region of the ternary with intermediate-silica fraction were determined by combining results of Vickers indentation, ultrasonic echography and Archimedian buoyancy at room temperature. Of three studied compositional series, the first series was along the meta-aluminous join, while in the two other series the molar fraction of SiO2 was kept constant. For the first series the elastic moduli and hardness show an almost linear increase with increasing SiO2 fraction. In contrast, increasing the CaO/SiO2 ratio at constant silica content results in a characteristic change when passing the meta-aluminous join. Elastic constants and hardness were lower at the percalcic than on the peraluminous side. Empirical models which relate bulk elastic moduli to internal energy, short-range inter-atomic forces and the packing density of their oxide constituents were found to be in agreement with the experimental data for meta-aluminous glasses, while deviations between the observed and predicted trends were evident for percalcic compositions. Empirical fatigue parameters such as the probability to initiate cracks after indentation reflect the bulk mechanical properties in the CAS system when conducted in inert atmosphere, but are otherwise clearly dominated by environmental effects

A novel optical real-time method for evaluating the castability of glass forming melts for laboratory furnaces is presented. The method is based on the analysis of top view images of the melt surface inside the crucible during melting after being subjected to a small mechanical impulse. In this way, the melt surface is excited to oscillate. The difference in contrast between two images taken in quick succession scales with the viscosity, with a larger diffe­rence occurring at lower viscosities. The method is designed as an instrument for the in-line evaluation of the castability for a high-throughput glass melting system as part of the joint project “GlasDigital” in the framework of the German Platform Material Digital initiative but is applicable to other laboratory furnaces as well.

We report the sintering of 3D-printed composites of 13-93 bioactive glass and hydroxyapatite (HAp) powders. The sintering process is characterized on conventionally produced powder compacts with varying HAp content. A numeric approximation of the densification kinetics is then obtained on the basis of Frenkel, Mackenzie–Shuttleworth, and Einstein–Roscoe models, and optimized sintering conditions for 3D-printed structures are derived. Fully isotropic sintering of complex cellular composites is obtained by continuous heating to 750°C at a rate of 2 K/min for a HAp content of 40 wt%. The approach can readily be generalized for printing and sintering of similar glass-ceramic composites.