Sintering Uranium Pellets

Would you like to eliminate premature refractory repairs, inconsistent furnace operation and poor production yields in your high-temperature atmosphere furnace sintering nuclear fuel pellets? 

The choice comes down to selecting the material that works best under high-temperature, dry atmosphere conditions. Furnaces operating at temperatures around 1700ºC have unique and demanding requirements.

As a materials innovator, Saint-Gobain has the oxide refractory package to meet your high- temperature atmosphere furnace requirements for sintering nuclear fuel pellets. This includes a complete line of high purity alumina refractories. 

Furnace refractories provide insulation, support and wear resistance. Saint-Gobain can engineer bricks, hearth plates and specialty shapes to suit your thermal processing application. 

High-temperature atmosphere furnaces operating at 1700ºC or higher require the use of 99%+ high purity alumina refractory.

Saint-Gobain high purity Alundum® and Alfrax® alumina materials minimize or eliminate contamination and degradation that results from the reduction and re-oxidation of silica, soda and potassia found in other refractory products. These alumina mixes remain stable in the driest high-temperature furnaces due to limited amounts of impurities that won’t leave unwanted deposits and shorten the lifespan of your refractory lining.

Alundum® and Alfrax® refractory systems provide long-lasting, durable linings in high- temperature atmosphere furnaces. Alundum® and Alfrax® brick and shapes support heavy loads. Hearth plates provide creep and sag resistance including a wear-resistant push surface. Saint-Gobain offers both dense and insulating high purity alumina refractory. ALUNDUM® A599B is considered the highest purity insulating “bubble” alumina on the market. Norfoam® A is an ultra-low density, ultra-high purity ceramic foam with excellent insulating and thermal shock resistant properties. Norfoam® A does not contain any fiber materials or organic binders and is HSE friendly in use and application. 

Saint-Gobain crushable ceramic thermocouple insulators allow for accurate temperature and radiation measurement and monitoring in nuclear reactors.  

Alundum®-fused Al2O3 and Magnorite® fused MgO crushable thermocouple insulators from Saint-Gobain provide thermal and electrical insulation in swaged or drawn metal sheathed thermocouples.

Insulators are carefully threaded on thermocouple conductor wires and inserted inside seamless metal tubing. The entire assembly is then swaged, or drawn down, to the desired dimensions. During swaging, the insulators readily crush into powder that is compacted around the wires to provide electrical insulation.

Crushable insulators from Saint-Gobain can be manufactured in many configurations. Crushable ceramic, high-purity materials and rigidly controlled physical and chemical properties ensure thermocouple accuracy.

Crushable insulators are offered in standard diameters from 0.56mm to 12.70mm, in lengths from 25mm to 102mm, with one to four holes. Custom variations can be developed in virtually any configuration. With high-purity crushable ceramic insulators from Saint-Gobain, you can produce more accurate thermocouples to meet nuclear industry demands.

Related Products

• Bricks, plates, tc insulators
• Silicon nitride seals