Effects of prestresses on mechanical properties of isotropic graphite materials

Graphite materials which are used for plasma facing components and other components are subjected to stresses due to the high heat flux from the fusion plasma. Some mechanical properties of graphite materials can change due to the prestresses. The property changes should be considered for the design of the plasma facing components. The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of prestresses on the mechanical properties of isotropic graphite materials. Compressive prestresses were applied to two kinds of isotropic fine-grained graphites (IG-430 and IG-11) at 298 K (both), 1873 K (IG-11), 2273 K (IG-11) and 2283 K (IG-430). As a result, the decrease in Young's modulus for IG-430 due to high-temperature prestressing was 56% which was much larger than the 6.4% that was due to prestressing at 298 K. The results for IG-11 were the same as those for IG-430 graphite. This finding was considered to be due primarily to a difference in degree of the preferred orientation of crystallites in the graphite on the basis of the Bacon anisotropy factor (BAF) obtained from X-ray diffraction measurement of the prestressed specimens. Furthermore, high-temperature compressive prestressing produced an increase in the strength of the isotropic graphite, although room temperature prestressing produced no such effect. The results obtained here suggest that the isotropic graphite which is subjected to high-temperature compressive stresses can become anisotropic in service. (orig.)