By heating the mixture of UO
2 and graphite in vacuum at 1, 600° to 2, 000°C, UC or UC
2 without unreacted UO
2 was obtained. Each of these carbides was milled in hexane, compacted into shapes in argon atmosphere and the sintered in vacuum (10
-4mmHg) at 1, 800° to 2, 000°C. High purity and high density (95% th.D.) pellets were thus obtained. Examining these sinterd pellets by carbon analysis, metallographic observation and X-ray diffraction, the following facts were revealed.
(1) UC sintered pellet had a monophase structure with a grain size of 50100μ and the stoichiometric composition.
(2) UC
2 sintered pellet was composed of UC
2 phase with grain size of 50100μ and UC phase of about 10%.
(3) Sinterability of UC
2 markedly decreased with increasing carbon content in the range of 8.6 to 8.9_??_. This change was attributed to the presence of free carbon.
(4) Maximum carbon content of UC
2 phase at the temperature range of 1, 800° to 2, 500°C was determined as 8.6±0.1_??_, that is, the composition of this phase could be expressed as UC
1.86±0.02.
(5) The kinetics of transformation of cubic UC
2 to tetragonal one was regarded as a martensitic diffusionless one.
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