Density and viscosity of liquid ZrO2 measured by aerodynamic levitation technique

Abstract

Liquid ZrO 2 is one of the most important materials involved in severe accident analysis of a light-water reactor. Despite its importance, the physical properties of liquid ZrO 2 are scarcely reported. In particular, there are no experimental reports on the viscosity of liquid ZrO 2 . This is mainly due to the technical difficulties involved in the measurement of thermo-physical properties of liquid ZrO 2 , which has an extremely high melting point. To address this problem, an aerodynamic levitation technique was used in this study. The density of liquid ZrO 2 was calculated from its mass and volume, estimated based on the recorded image of the sample. The viscosity was measured by a droplet oscillation technique. The density and viscosity of liquid ZrO 2 at temperatures ranging from 2753 K to 3273 K, and 3170 K–3471 K, respectively, were successfully evaluated. The density of liquid ZrO 2 was found to be 4.7 g/cm 3 at its melting point of 2988 K and decreased linearly with increasing temperature, and the viscosity of liquid ZrO 2 was 13 mPa at its melting point.

Measurements of Density of Liquid Oxides with an Aero-Acoustic Levitator

“…In Table 1 the density and thermal expansion coefficient values for liquid oxides measured in this work are listed together with four types of previously published density data: (i) measurements in aerodynamic levitator by Granier and Heurnault’s [ 59 ], Kohara et al [ 65 ], and Kondo et al [ 66 ]; (ii) measurements with the electrostatic levitator on board of International Space Station [ 36 , 37 ]; (iii) refinement from pair distribution function analysis (PDF) of synchrotron X-ray scattering [ 62 ]; (iv) ab initio molecular dynamic computations [ 60 , 63 ].…”

Novel Method for Surface Tension Measurement: the Drop-Bounce Method

“…The thermophysical properties of liquid metals and their oxides, such as density, surface tension, and viscosity, are significant for industrial applications of these materials and for understanding the structure and order within these liquids. Although the high melting temperatures of liquid metals pose a challenge for contact experiments, the development of levitation technologies, such as electrostatic levitation (ESL) (Paradis et al 2001;Rhim et al 1999;Ishikawa et al 2001), electromagnetic levitation (EML) (Egry et al 1995;Bayazitoglu et al 1998;Seidel 2011;Sauerland et al 1993), and aerodynamic levitation (ADL) (Kargl et al 2015;Langstaff et al 2013;Benmore and Weber 2017;Kondo et al 2019), over the past years has facilitated measurements at high temperatures without contamination. The suitable material for a specific type of levitation technique depends on the operating principle of the levitator.…”

Combustion synthesis of NbC/ZrO2 composites: Influence of Cr additives on the microstructure and mechanical properties

“…It increased only from 59.48 to 61.5 wt%. This indicated that the addition of chromium with its low viscosity (5.7 mPa s) 29 compared to that of ZrO 2 (13.0 mPa s) 27 might alter the physicochemical properties of the system, which caused its ease of spreading through solid Nb 6 C 5 granules. To further understand and evaluate the chromium addition effect and explain the experimental results, a set of equilibrium calculations were performed using the thermodynamic computation tool FactSage 7.3™ 30 .…”

“…Accordingly, it was expected that this high liquid phase percentage would help in the sintering process 26 and obtaining a high‐density product almost free of pores, which did not happen. This abnormal behavior may be attributed to the high viscosity of the molten zirconia phase (13.0 mPa s) 27 that had to pass through the solid niobium carbide grains. Practically, the time was not enough to either melt or spread the entire amount of ZrO 2 due to the high rate of heat dissipation.…”