Abstract:
The difference of fluidity between spherical fuel phase particles and metallically matrix powders of dispersed fuel is significant, so it is hard to mix uniformly. Aiming to solve this problem, a coating technology for spherical fuel phase particles was established and the influence of the coating technology on mixing uniformity was studied. Stainless steel microspheres whose diameters are 100 μm were chosen to replace fuel particles in experiment. The results show that by physically coating a layer of matrix powder on the surface of microsphere, its surface’s roughness increases, the density difference between coated particles and matrix powder decreases, and the sedimentation distance is reduced as well. The coating layer can also retain a definite space between particles, and form continuous matrix network, so particles’ assemble can be reduced or avoided, at the same time mixing uniformity can be improved effectively. The optimum parameters of the coating technology are: Keeping temperature is 76 ℃, keeping time is 6 min, the interpolative quantity of binder is 1%, and size of coating layer’s powder is less than 25 μm. The coating technology can be applied to improve the mixing uniformity of other dispersed fuel materials, whose particles are spherical, such as (U-Mo)-Al and (U-Mo)-Zr.