The Influence of Sintering Atmosphere on the Reduction Behaviour of Refractory Bricks and the Basic Properties of $UO_{2}$ Pellet

The $UO_2$ pellets are usually sintered under hydrogen gas atmosphere. Hydrogen gas may cause unexpected early failure of the refractory bricks in the sintering furnace. In this work, nitrogen was mixed with hydrogen to investigate the effect of nitrogen gas on a failure machanism of the refractory bricks and on the microstructure of the $UO_2$ pellet. The hydrogen-nitrogen mixed gas experiments show that the larger nitrogen the mixed gas contains, the less the refractory materials are reduced by hydrogen. The weight loss measurements at $1400^{\circ}C$ for fire clay and chamotte refractories containing high content of $SiO_2$ indicate that the weight loss rate for the mixed gas is about half of that for the hydrogen gas. Based on the thermochemical analyses, it is proposed that the weight loss is caused by hydrogen-induced reduction of free $SiO_2$ and/or $SiO_2$ bonded to $Al_2O_3$ in the fire clay and chamotte refractories. However, the retardation of the hydrogen-induced $SiO_2$ reduction rate under the mixed gas atmosphere may be due to the reduction of the surface reaction rate between hydrogen gas and refractory materials in proportion to volume fraction of nitrogen gas in the mixed gas. On the other hand, the mixed gas experiments show that the test data for $UO_2$ pellet still meet the related specification values, even if there exists a slight difference in the pellet microstructural parameters between the cases of the mixed gas and the hydrogen gas.