Material Systems for Extreme Environments

要求材料运行的条件正变得越来越具有挑战性。在制造、能源生产、运输和环境清理的所有领域，工作温度和压力都在上升。高温往往与恶劣的化学环境和暴露在高能以及核工业中的电离辐射相结合。能够在这些条件下工作的下一代材料的生产和加工将不是微不足道的，特别是在许多这样的应用中所需的规模。在某些情况下，必须开发全新的组合、加工和加入策略。对许多部件长期可靠性的需求意味着，在加工过程中引入的缺陷将需要保持在绝对最小的水平或开发容错系统，例如通过纤维增强。将不同的长度和时间尺度联系起来以定义材料的化学成分、微观结构和加工策略的建模技术是加快这些下一代材料发展的关键。此外，它们不会孤立地发挥作用，而是作为一个系统的一部分。后者的行为是至关重要的，因此必须了解不同材料之间的相互作用、连接过程、不同部件在极端条件下的行为以及如何使它们一起工作。我们的愿景是发展所需的理解，了解在极端环境中运行的材料系统的加工、微观结构和性能是如何相互作用的，从而能够设计并制造具有所需性能的材料。与美国的材料基因组计划相结合，我们将在实验极其困难和昂贵的领域整合分层和预测建模能力。团队在这一领域拥有丰富的工作经验。在三年的时间里，DSTL资助了与这项计划相关的三所大学之间的合作，开发出了基于诸如二硼化锆和碳化硅等外来材料的复合材料，用作高超声速飞行器的前沿。世界领先的成就包括使用一种被称为放电等离子烧结(SPS)的相对较新的技术在&lt；10分钟内将它们致密；在高达2000oC的温度下测量它们的热性能和机械性能；评估它们在极高热流密度下的氧化性能，并生产能够承受异常高的升温速率(如1000oC S-1)和近3000oC温度几分钟的纤维增强系统。为本计划拨款计划的研究旨在将这些知识转移到核聚变和裂变、航空航天和其他应用的材料加工中，在这些应用中，极高温度下的辐射、氧化和侵蚀是必不可少的，并通过进行有史以来最彻底的评估之一，深入了解这些材料的加工-显微结构-性能关系以及它们如何相互作用，从而设计出新的革命性成分、微结构和复合系统。制造和测试。将考虑一系列潜在的晶体化学，以确定一系列材料系统的运行机制，并实现改变范式的发展。该计划补助金将使我们能够拥有所需的专业知识，以产生从预测和合成到加工、表征和应用的一连串知识，使英国在恶劣环境下的材料方面处于世界领先地位。

The conditions in which materials are required to operate are becoming ever more challenging. Operating temperatures and pressures are increasing in all areas of manufacture, energy generation, transport and environmental clean-up. Often the high temperatures are combined with severe chemical environments and exposure to high energy and, in the nuclear industry, to ionising radiation. The production and processing of next-generation materials capable of operating in these conditions will be non-trivial, especially at the scale required in many of these applications. In some cases, totally new compositions, processing and joining strategies will have to be developed. The need for long-term reliability in many components means that defects introduced during processing will need to be kept to an absolute minimum or defect-tolerant systems developed, e.g. via fibre reinforcement. Modelling techniques that link different length and time scales to define the materials chemistry, microstructure and processing strategy are key to speeding up the development of these next-generation materials. Further, they will not function in isolation but as part of a system. It is the behaviour of the latter that is crucial, so that interactions between different materials, the joining processes, the behaviour of the different parts under extreme conditions and how they can be made to work together, must be understood.Our vision is to develop the required understanding of how the processing, microstructures and properties of materials systems operating in extreme environments interact to the point where materials with the required performance can be designed and then manufactured. Aligned with the Materials Genome Initiative in the USA, we will integrate hierarchical and predictive modelling capability in fields where experiments are extremely difficult and expensive.The team have significant experience of working in this area. Composites based on 'exotic' materials such as zirconium diborides and silicon carbide have been developed for use as leading edges for hypersonic vehicles over a 3 year, DSTL funded collaboration between the 3 universities associated with this proposal. World-leading achievements include densifying them in <10 mins using a relatively new technique known as spark plasma sintering (SPS); measuring their thermal and mechanical properties at up to 2000oC; assessing their oxidation performance at extremely high heat fluxes and producing fibre-reinforced systems that can withstand exceptionally high heating rates, e.g. 1000oC s-1, and temperatures of nearly 3000oC for several minutes.The research planned for this Programme Grant is designed to both spin off this knowledge into materials processing for nuclear fusion and fission, aerospace and other applications where radiation, oxidation and erosion resistance at very high temperatures are essential and to gain a deep understanding of the processing-microstructure-property relations of these materials and how they interact with each other by undertaking one of the most thorough assessments ever, allowing new and revolutionary compositions, microstructures and composite systems to be designed, manufactured and tested. A wide range of potential crystal chemistries will be considered to enable identification of operational mechanisms across a range of materials systems and to achieve paradigm changing developments. The Programme Grant would enable us to put in place the expertise required to produce a chain of knowledge from prediction and synthesis through to processing, characterisation and application that will enable the UK to be world leading in materials for harsh environments.