SCIENTIFIC-APPLIED LABORATORY OF ADVANCED MATERIALS AND TECHNOLOGIES
The laboratory investigates the possibilities of applying high pressures, including those in large volumes, for producing new materials with unique properties.
Principal lines of investigations
- Development of technology for producing carbon-carbon composite materials.
- Development of methods for obtaining large polycrystals and ceramics on the basis of superhard materials.
- Studying fullerite transformations under high pressures.
- Development of high-pressure equipment and the study of high pressure impact on microbiological and biological objects.
Basic equipment
- A set of hydraulic presses with forces from 10 to 6000 tons; the largest in the world, hydraulic press with the force 50000 tons (the Big Press);
- A set of the "toroid" type high-pressure chambers (hole diameter 10, 15, 35, and 50 mm).
- A set of "piston-cylinder" high-pressure apparatus (piston diameter from 150 to 1000 mm), in which free-flowing materials are used as a pressure-transmitting medium.
- A set of high-pressure apparatus designed for investigation of biological objects under hydrostatic pressures up to 2 GPa.
Most important results:
- Technology for producing blanks from carbon-carbon composite materials with diametes up to 700 mm and heights up to 500 mm has been developed and brought into commercial practice (in cooperation with Institute of Graphite).
- Technology for prepraring (sintering) diamond polycrystals (compacts) from synthetic and natural diamond micropowders with diameters up to 15 mm has been developed and is being introduced into production;
- Non-equilibrium P,T phase diagram of fullerite C60 has been investigated quantitatively under pressures up to 9 GPa.