Thermal Energy Transport in Oxide Nuclear Fuel

Abstract

To efficiently capture the energy of the nuclear bond, advanced nuclear reactor concepts seek solid fuels that must withstand unprecedented temperature and radiation extremes. In these advanced fuels, thermal energy transport under irradiation is directly related to reactor performance as well as reactor safety. The science of thermal transport in nuclear fuel is a grand challenge due to both computational and experimental complexities. Here, we provide a comprehensive review of thermal transport research on two actinide oxides: one currently in use in commercial nuclear reactors, uranium dioxide (UO2), and one advanced fuel candidate material, thorium dioxide (ThO2). In both materials, heat is carried by lattice waves or phonons. Crystalline defects caused by fission events effectively scatter phonons and lead to a degradation in fuel performance over time. Bolstered by new computational and experimental tools, researchers are now developing the foundational work necessary to accurately model and ultimately control thermal transport in advanced nuclear fuel. We begin by reviewing research aimed at understanding thermal transport in perfect single crystals. The absence of defects enables studies that focus on the fundamental aspects of phonon transport. Next, we review research that targets defect generation and evolution. Here, the focus is on ion irradiation studies used as surrogates for damage caused by fission products. We end this review with a discussion of modeling and experimental efforts directed at predicting and validating mesoscale thermal transport in the presence of irradiation defects. While efforts into these research areas have been robust, challenging work remains in developing holistic tools to capture and predict thermal energy transport across widely varying environmental conditions.

Publication Date: December 17, 2021

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Cited by in corpus (7)

• Synchrotron Radiation Techniques and their Application to Actinide Materials
• Advances in actinide thin films: synthesis, properties, and future directions
• Phonon thermal transport in UO${}_2$ via self-consistent perturbation theory
• Implications of phonon anisotropy on thermal conductivity of fluorite oxides
• Phonon modal analysis of thermal transport in ThO2 with point defects using equilibrium molecular dynamics
• Parameterizing empirical interatomic potentials for predicting thermophysical properties via an irreducible derivative approach: the case of ThO${}_2$ and UO${}_2$
• Thermal Transport in Defective Uranium Nitride: Effects of Point Defects, Anharmonicity, and Electronic Contributions