Uranium dioxide powder preparation, pressing, and sintering for optimum yield

Ceramic powders for pressing and sintering are usually accepted after a sin terability test under standard conditions. However powders not passing the standard rest may still be successfully processed either by rework on the p owder or by modifying the pressing and sintering conditions, achieving over all economy in production. Methods that have been developed for uranium dio xide powder are presented. A compaction map has been proposed, with precomp action pressure and final compaction pressure as axes and defect and defect -free regions marked.