Mechanism and macrokinetics of reactions accompanying the combustion of SHS systems

Abstract

Self-propagating high-temperature synthesis (SHS) processes are used primarily to prepare materials with fixed properties. The mechanism of reaction and formation of structure in SHS waves can be determined only based on the results of special experiments that take into account the real structure of samples and the significant nonisothermality using not one but many independent methods that mutually supplement one another. This paper evaluates methods and instruments for studying the mechanisms of SHS and conducts a theoretical study of these mechanisms using results from the visualization of the interaction process at the particle level, enabled by electron microscopy, and by the use of x-ray phase analysis on a synchrotron radiation diffractometer, which enabled following the dynamics of the phase transformations in the combustion wave.