Subjecting materials to high pressure
AssigneeNational Research Development Corporation
InventorDouglas Charles Barnes
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Method and Apparatus for subjecting material to extreme compression, for instance in the making of artificial diamonds. The material is enclosed within a cluster of anvils. When pressure pads converge to bear upon the clustered anvils so that they slide against each other and the cluster contracts, the material within is compressed. The reaction of each anvil with its pressure pad is directed generally towards the material to be compressed but lies out-of-parallel with the interfaces of sliding movement of that anvil with its neighbours. The pad-anvil reaction can thus be resolved into components urging each anvil into contact with its neighbours, and thus supporting the anvil against fracture due to the high compression it undergoes along the pad-specimen axis.
Claims6
Apparatus to subject materials to high pressure comprising:
- pressure sources mounted to converge upon a space and presenting working faces;
- a plurality of similar and movable anvils arrangeable in a cluster within this space;
- the cluster completely defining an enclosed parallelepipedal volume to be filled by the material to be compressed;
- each anvil having side faces and opposed end faces;
- part of a first of the opposed end faces of each anvil defining a face of the enclosed parallelepipedal volume;
- the second and opposite end face of each anvil being in sliding contact with one of said working faces, whereby it may be acted upon by one of the pressure sources;
- a plurality of the side faces of each anvil being in sliding contact with faces of adjacent anvils in the cluster, whereby the anvils by mutual sliding movement may converge upon the volume and reduce it by the same proportion in each of its linear dimensions, and the line of action of the resultant force of each anvil against its working face lying oblique to the planes of sliding motion of that anvil against adjacent anvils, whereby that force may be resolved into components urging that anvil into contact with the said adjacent anvils.
A method of compressing a parallelepidal specimen of material comprising the following steps:
- surrounding the specimen with six similar anvils, so that a first end face of each anvil abuts a different face of the specimen and a second and opposite end face of each anvil in inclined to the first end face;
- causing said cluster of anvils to contract, so compressing the specimen, by compressing said cluster in turn between two converging pressure sources ,
- each said source having three working faces and each said working face bearing slidingly upon the said opposite end face of a different anvil;
- and
- causing each said anvil to slide over adjacent anvils as it moves to compress said specimen upon contraction of said cluster for setting up a resultant reaction of each anvil against its working face that lies oblique to the directions of sliding motion of that anvil against adjacent anvils.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.