The Numerical Simulation and Design of the Electrical Heating System for Electric Conductive Ultra-high-temperature-ceramics Test Specimen

Ultra-high temperature ceramics is a kind of ceramic materials which is hard to melt above 2000℃. Ultra-high temperature ceramics is outstanding performance in electrical conductivity and thermal conductivity. Zirconium diboride has to suffer ultra-high-temperature that might be over 2700oC. However, the highest working temperature we can achieve for the testing of the mechanical properties of such kind of materials is less than 1500 oC, far from the need for the testing of the material at its actual temperature. Moreover, the high temperature furnaces are low-usage, and have a long experimental period. Making good use of the electrical and thermal conductivities, we could heat a Zirconium diboride specimen with electrical current. The electrical heating of a Zirconium diboride specimen is simulated with the commercial available finite element code ABAQUS. The temperature and cooling of copper electrodes and that of collets, is also analyzed, and the temperature distributions are obtained. In order to achieve reasonable distribution of temperature in the specimen, the copper electrodes and the collets, the corresponding cooling system is designed, and the cooling liquids are selected.