Development of high conductivity carbon-carbon composite materials for advanced nuclear reactors

Carbon and carbon based materials, in various forms, have been the important materials for progress in nuclear technology. Carbon-carbon composites due to their high thermal conductivity and ability to retain mechanical properties even at elevated temperatures are considered as the most promising materials for the fusion reactors and other future generation atomic reactors. However, in order to achieve highest possible properties and to take care of limitations such as neutron interaction and Wigner energy, their microstructure has to be properly controlled through proper choice of fibrous materials, matrix precursor and processing route. Paper describes the work done at authors Institute to develop high thermal conductivity pitch matrix carbon-carbon composites. (author)