Energy and Deformation during Explosive Compaction of ZrB2-SiC Ultrahigh Temperature Ceramics

To introduce a new technique and to choose the process parameters, ZrB2-SiC ultrahigh temperature ceramics (UHTCs) were prepared by mixing and explosive compaction. The explosive kinds or explosive mass was variable so as to change the explosive impact energy. We have studied the relationships of the explosive impact energy, the tube deformation energy, the powder compaction energy and the ratio of the explosive mass to the tube mass (R), the relationships of the tube deformation energy, the tube equivalent strain and the mass ratio R, and the relationships of the densities of the ZrB2 composites and the powder compact energy. The results show that the densities of the ZrB2 composites reach 93.37% of theory density. For any kind of explosive, the reduction of the outer diameter and the equivalent strain of the steel tubes raises gradually with the rise of the mass ratio R. Generally speaking, the higher the explosion speed of the explosive is, the larger the deformation degree and the equivalent strain of the steel tubes are. The explosive impact energy can be divided into two parts: the tube deformation energy and the powder compact energy; with the rise of the mass ratio R, the tube deformation energy hardly changes, while the explosive impact energy and powder compact energy increase synchronously, and the densities of the ZrB2 composites also increase gradually. The density of the ZrB2 composites produced by different explosives orders from big to small as RDX, Ammonium Nitrate, TNT, and Urea Nitrate.