Beryllium oxide : Los Alamos technical series. Volume 10, chapter 3, Metallurgy

Author / Creator

Smith, Cyril Stanley, 1903-1992

Available as

Online

Summary

The first production job undertaken by the Metallurgy Groups at Los Alamos was that of the specially-shaped high-density beryllium oxide bricks needed for the Water Boiler. Hot-pressing of BeO powd...

The first production job undertaken by the Metallurgy Groups at Los Alamos was that of the specially-shaped high-density beryllium oxide bricks needed for the Water Boiler. Hot-pressing of BeO powder was found to be the most satisfactory method of obtaining intricately-shaped bricks of suitable density. This was accomplished by charging the powder into a graphite die, or mold, of suitable shape fitted with a punch, or plunger, of graphite. The die and contents were heated to about 1700 deg C by means of an induction coil connected to a high-frequency converter. During the heating period a pressure of 1000 psi was applied to the plunger, thus consolidating the semiplastic BeO powder into a dense coherent mass of the shape of the die.

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