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Conference Article: Study of reaction: Coated SiC coating on HTGR fuel elements

Abstract

The graphite has excellent nuclear and high temperature performance, and is used in atomic reactors with enormous quantities. The oxidation resistance of graphite is very poor, therefore, the application of graphite is only in restricted environment. SiC presents excellent ability of the oxidation resistance. It is reported in this paper that the uniform and dense SiC coating is formed by the reaction of the graphite matrix and melted silicon. Oxidation experiments show that, when samples were heated to 1000 deg. C in air for 8 hours, the graphite was burnt off 68 wt. %, whereas the coated graphite only 1.7 wt.%, and 1.0wt% at. 1500 deg. C in air for 2 hours.

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Reference:

Technical committee meeting on response of fuel, fuel elements and gas cooled reactor cores under accidental air or water ingress conditions. Beijing (China). 25-27 Oct 1993

International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna (Austria)

IAEA-TECDOC--784, pp:107-109