Reactivity of plasma-sintered beryllium-titanium intermetallic compounds with water vapor

Kim, Jae-Hwan; Nakamichi, Masaru

The establishment of the synthesis technique for beryllides is a key issue of the advanced neutron multiplier development. In the previous study, trial fabrication examinations were carried out. Plasma sintering is a non-conventional consolidation process for beryllides synthesis. The synthesis results clarified that the beryllide has been successfully fabricated by this method. In this study, the effect of phase compositions on high temperature reactivity of the plasma-sintered beryllides was evaluated. The beryllides sintered for various times, which they have different phase compositions, were examined by thermal-gravimetry and hydrogen gas generation rate was simultaneously measured at 873 K, 1073 K and 1273 K for 24 hr under Ar gas containing water vapor to investigate the effect of phase compositions on the reactivity with water vapor. The result of weight gains clarified that with increase of the area fraction of Be, oxidation resistance decreases under dry air. H gas generation rates of the beryllides at high temperature demonstrate that the larger fraction of Be the beryllide has, the higher H generation rate it indicates. It is clear that the Be phase in the plasma-sintered beryllide attributes to increase of the H gas generation. In this study, we report on the effect of phase compositions on reactivity with water vapor of the plasma-sintered beryllides which were fabricated with different sintering conditions.