Sensitivity of thermal transport in thorium dioxide to defects
| Autor: | Christian Enriquez, Tien Yee, Eduardo B. Farfán, Jungkyu Park, Alex Resnick, Katherine Mitchell |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2018 |
| Předmět: |
Nuclear and High Energy Physics
Thorium dioxide Materials science Analytical chemistry Thorium chemistry.chemical_element 02 engineering and technology Uranium 021001 nanoscience & nanotechnology 01 natural sciences Thorium fuel cycle chemistry.chemical_compound Thermal transport Thermal conductivity Nuclear Energy and Engineering chemistry Vacancy defect 0103 physical sciences General Materials Science 010306 general physics 0210 nano-technology Neutron activation |
| Zdroj: | Journal of Nuclear Materials. 504:198-205 |
| ISSN: | 0022-3115 |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.jnucmat.2018.03.043 |
| Popis: | In this research, the reverse non-equilibrium molecular dynamics is employed to investigate the effect of vacancy and substitutional defects on the thermal transport in thorium dioxide (ThO2). Vacancy defects are shown to severely alter the thermal conductivity of ThO2. The thermal conductivity of ThO2 decreases significantly with increasing the defect concentration of oxygen vacancy; the thermal conductivity of ThO2 decreases by 20% when 0.1% oxygen vacancy defects are introduced in the 100 unit cells of ThO2. The effect of thorium vacancy defect on the thermal transport in ThO2 is even more detrimental; ThO2 with 0.1% thorium vacancy defect concentration exhibits a 38.2% reduction in its thermal conductivity and the thermal conductivity becomes only 8.2% of that of the pristine sample when the thorium vacancy defect concentration is increased to 5%. In addition, neutron activation of thorium produces uranium and this uranium substitutional defects in ThO2 are observed to affect the thermal transport in ThO2 marginally when compared to vacancy defects. This indicates that in the thorium fuel cycle, fissile products such as 233U is not likely to alter the thermal transport in ThO2 fuel. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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