Hybrid-toroidal anvil: a replacement for the conventional WC anvil used for the large volume cubic high pressure apparatus

Abstract

We propose a design and operation of a hybrid-toroidal anvil used for the large volume cubic high pressure apparatus (LV-CHPA), such that it is possible to obtain a higher sintered quality, less weight and cost of tungsten carbide (WC) anvil than the conventional anvil. We use the finite element simulations to show the distributions of the stress on the surface and in the bulk of the WC anvils, and conclude that, for a given load on the hybrid-toroidal anvil, the volume of the compressed press medium has increased by 4.88%, and the rate of the transmitted pressure has increased by 6.72% compared with the conventional anvil. Furthermore, the advantages of the hybrid-toroidal anvil are that the movement of anvils increases by 37.14% and the growth rate of the fatigue crack decreases by 40%. This has been proved by the high pressure experiments. This work gives an approach to optimize the WC anvils used for the LV-CHPA and presents a simple method to achieve the higher sample pressure and the larger sample volume.