Cracking solution

Russian scientists claim to have developed a ceramic able to withstand multiple heating and cooling cycles, while remaining non-brittle. One application could be the vital components for a new generation of nuclear reactors.

The team, from the Leipunsky Physics-Energy Institute in Obninsk, constructed the ceramic from a wide variety of differently-sized granules. ‘A distinguishing feature of our ceramic is its structure,’ said project manager Irina Kurina. ‘Generally speaking, there are three types of component in the structure: large grains of oxide material (from 50–100µm), fine grains (from one to 10µm) and a little emptiness. In other words there are pores, located in a special way, predominantly around the boundaries of the grains.’

In conventional ceramics, the grains that make up the bulk of the structure are anchored firmly in place. Unlike metals — whose atoms have a degree of freedom to vibrate, allowing the material to conduct heat or move around each other, imparting ductility and plasticity — ceramic materials are rigid. When heated, this energy cannot easily propagate through the material.