Preparation and Performance of Neutron Absorbing Dysprosium Oxide Ceramic

Abstract:

Dysprosium is a kind of potential neutron absorption material with the thermal neutron absorption cross area of 950 Barn. In this paper, dysprosium oxide (Dy₂O₃) ceramic was prepared by pressureless sintering. The density, bending strength, fracture toughness and hardness of Dy₂O₃ ceramics under different sintering schedule were analyzed. The density of Dy₂O₃ ceramics was enhanced accompanied with the increase in sintering temperature, and it was close to the theoretical value when heated at 1630 °C. Bending strength reached a maximum of 117 MPa when sintering temperature was 1570 °C. However, fracture toughness was inversely proportional to the hardness approximately. As a consequence, the optimum sintering temperature for mechanical property of Dy₂O₃ ceramics was 1570 °C. The morphology of fracture surface was examined by SEM. The results showed that the porosity of Dy₂O₃ ceramics decreased with increasing temperature. Meanwhile, the Monte-Carlo software was used to simulate the neutron absorption property. The absorbtivity was about 99.13% when the neutron source was uniform energy spectrum of 10^-11 Mev~10^-5 Mev and the thickness of Dy₂O₃ was of 20 mm.

• Periodical: Key Engineering Materials (Volume 697)
• Pages: 404-408
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/KEM.697.404
• Online since: July 2016
• Authors: Yu Bai Zhang, Yu Jun Zhang*, Jia Xing Zhao
• Keywords: Dysprosium Oxide, Mechanical Properties, Neutron Absorption

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