Rafailov G, Dahan I, Meshi L. New ordered phase in the quasi-binary UAl3-USi3 system.
ACTA CRYSTALLOGRAPHICA SECTION B, STRUCTURAL SCIENCE, CRYSTAL ENGINEERING AND MATERIALS 2014;
70:580-585. [PMID:
24892604 DOI:
10.1107/s2052520614003801]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/14/2013] [Accepted: 02/18/2014] [Indexed: 06/03/2023]
Abstract
The industrial importance of the U-Al-Si system stems from the fact that during processing the Al-based alloy (containing Si as impurity), used for the cladding of U (fuel in nuclear reactors), undergoes heat treatment which stimulates diffusion between the fuel and the cladding. One of the possible ways to represent the ternary U-Al-Si phase diagram is the construction of an UAl3-USi3 quasi-binary phase diagram. On the one hand, since the UAl3 and USi3 phases are isostructural, an isomorphous phase diagram is expected; on the other hand, some researchers observed a miscibility gap at lower temperatures. During our study of the UAl3-USi3 quasi-binary phase diagram, a new stable U(Alx,Si1 - x)3 phase was identified. The structure of this phase was determined, using a combination of electron crystallography and powder X-ray diffraction methods, as tetragonal [I4/mmm (No.139) space group], with lattice parameters a = b = 8.347 (1), c = 16.808 (96) Å. Its unit cell has 64 atoms and it can be described as an ordered variant of the U(Al,Si)3 solid solution. A Bärnighausen tree was constructed using the original U(Al,Si)3 structure as an aristotype.
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