Abstract
α-spectrometry was used in order to measure the diffusion of U in bulk α-Ti in the temperature range 863–1123 K (540–850 °C). A straight Arrhenius plot was found, giving diffusion parameters Q = 297 kJ/mol and D 0 = 5 × 10−3 m2/s, which are similar to the α-Ti self-diffusion ones, when measured in Ti samples with a similar impurity content than presently. This behaviour is compatible with the hypothesis of U diffusing via a vacancy-assisted mechanism in the α-Ti lattice and contrasts with older results in which the activation energy is almost a third the self-diffusion one, even lower than the vacancy formation energy.
Acknowledgments
The authors want to thank Dr. Roberto Passianot for his careful reading of the manuscript. This work was partially supported by the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas CONICET PIP 0804/10.