Preparation and entropy regulation study of low thermal conductivity and high strength (ZrHfCeYLaX)O oxides

In the thermal protection system of spacecraft, the bolts connecting the ceramic to the internal superalloy need to have low thermal conductivity and high strength . Two dense high entropy fluorite oxides (Zr 1/7 Hf 1/7 Ce 1/7 Y 2/7 La 2/7 )O 2-δ (ZHCYL) and (Zr 1/8 Hf 1/8 Ce 1/8 Y 1/4 La 1/4 Pr 1/8 )O 2-δ (ZHCYLP) were designed and synthesized by using the synergistic effect of plasma-assisted ball milling and spark plasma sintering(SPS). Through the synergistic effect of lattice distortion and oxygen vacancy guided by entropy regulation, ZHCYLP synthesized in this study has lower thermal conductivity(1.13 W·m −1 ·K −1 ), higher high temperature strength(192 MPa at 1000 °C) and high temperature phase stability up to 1600 °C than 8YSZ ceramics. The thermo-mechanical coupling finite element analysis results of high temperature bending test show that the variation trend of the maximum stress value of the sample is consistent with the experimental results. This shows that the mechanical and thermal properties of high entropy oxides can predict the variation trend of the maximum stress value in high temperature bending tests. It opens up a new way for designing and synthesizing high entropy oxide materials with low thermal conductivity and high strength which can be applied in the field of heat protection and load bearing.