Laboratory production of zirconium carbide compacts for use in inert matrix fuels

Effect of Zirconium on the Densification of Reactively Hot‐Pressed Zirconium Carbide

“…To account for that we have modified the model of Helle et al [25][26][27] Constitutive equations are shown in Eq. (2)(3)(4)(5).…”

“…[1][2][3] Like any other UHTC material, the low coefficients of self-diffusion make it difficult to produce fully dense product at low homologous temperatures by conventional techniques such as hot pressing (HP). An earlier study on HP of ZrC showed that a temperature upward of 2000°C is necessary to reach reasonably high density.…”

TEM study of the reaction mechanisms involved in the carbothermal reduction of zirconia

“…Many routes were developed to synthesize powders -Selfpropagated High-temperature Synthesis (SHS) reaction, [5][6][7][8] laser pyrolysis, [9][10][11][12][13] fusion synthesis by arc-melting, 14 mechanosynthesis [15][16][17] or thin films by Chemical Vapour Deposition (CVD 18,19 ). Each of these synthesis routes presents both advantages and drawbacks, but they are generally used to produce limited quantities of carbides.…”

Densification behavior and properties of hot-pressed ZrC ceramics with Zr and graphite additives

“…4,5 In addition, in the frame work of the Generation-IV nuclear energy system, ZrC is one of the possible inert matrix materials for gas-cooled fast reactor (GFR) fuel and potential fuel coating material for high-temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR) fuel due to its resistance to corrosion by fission products and neutronic properties. 6,7 However, ZrC is also characterized by its poor sinterability, mainly due to its strong covalent bond characteristics and low self-diffusion coefficient, analogous to that of other carbides such as HfC, SiC, and B 4 C. In this context, pressure-assisted techniques and high sintering temperatures are generally applied to get dense ZrC bodies. 8,9 For example, without any sintering aids, ZrC ceramics with relative density ranging from 94% to 97% were obtained by hot-pressing under 30-40 MPa at temperatures higher than 2200 • C. 10,11 To reduce the sintering temperature required for densification, various metallic, oxide, and non-oxide additives have been chosen as sintering aids.…”