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Unified Effect of Dispersed Xe on the Thermal Conductivity of UO2 Predicted by Three Interatomic Potentials

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Abstract

Thermal conductivity is a critical fuel performance property of uranium dioxide (UO2)-based nuclear fuels. Numerous studies have shown that xenon (Xe) fission gas plays a major role in fuel thermal conductivity degradation. It has also been shown that dispersed Xe atoms can cause a stronger phonon-scattering effect than their clustered form. In this work, molecular dynamics simulations are conducted to study the dispersed Xe-induced thermal conductivity reduction using three different interatomic potentials. It is found that although these potentials result in significant discrepancies in the absolute thermal conductivity values, the normalized values are very similar at a wide range of temperatures and Xe concentrations. By integrating this unified effect into the experimentally measured thermal conductivities, a new analytical model is developed to predict the realistic thermal conductivities of UO2 at different dispersed Xe concentrations and temperatures. Using this new model, the critical Xe concentration that offsets the grain boundary Kapitza resistance effect in a high burnup structure is revisited.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the funding support by the US Department of Energy, Nuclear Energy University Program (Award # DE-NE0008279, through the University of Florida), and the Advanced Research Computing at Virginia Tech. X.M. Bai also thanks the Faculty Joint Appointment Program at Idaho National Laboratory. The manuscript has been co-authored by Battelle Energy Alliance, LLC, under contract no. DE-AC07-05ID14517 with the US Department of Energy. The US Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the US Government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of the manuscript, or allow others to do so, for US Government purposes.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 140 Randolph Hall, 460 Old Turner Street, Blacksburg, VA, 24061, USA

    Weiming Chen & Xian-Ming Bai

  2. Fuel Modeling and Simulation Department, Idaho National Laboratory, 2525 Fremont Avenue, Idaho Falls, ID, 83415, USA

    Xian-Ming Bai

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  1. Weiming Chen
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Chen, W., Bai, XM. Unified Effect of Dispersed Xe on the Thermal Conductivity of UO2 Predicted by Three Interatomic Potentials. JOM 72, 1710–1718 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11837-019-03985-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11837-019-03985-9

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