Oxidation behavior of U-10 at% Zr alloy in air at 300–500 ‡c

The oxidation behavior of U-10 at% Zr alloy was studied using an X-Ray Diffractometer (XRD) and a thermogravimetric analyzer in the temperature range from 300 to 500 ‡C in air. From XRD, Infrared Spectroscopy (IR) and chemical analysis studies it was found that U-Zr alloy after complete oxidation was converted to U3O8 and ZrO2 broken into several pieces of thin plates and some blocks. From the slope value (l/n=0.562-0.872) of the log-log plots of the weight gain against time, the oxidation kinetics was analyzed by a paralinear equation. The activation energy of 20 % conversion of U-Zr alloy to U3O8 and ZrO2 was 57.02 kJ/mol and the oxidation rate per unit time and area was obtained to be :1\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document} $$dw/dt = 1.41 \times 10^6 e\left( {\frac{{ - 57.02kJ/mol}}{{RT}}} \right)mg/min - cm^2 ,$$ \end{document}, where w, t and T are weight gain, time and temperature, respectively.