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- Title
Ambient Melting Behavior of Stoichiometric Uranium-Plutonium Mixed Oxide Fuel †.
- Authors
Burakovsky, Leonid; Ramsey, Scott D.; Baty, Roy S.
- Abstract
Mixed oxides of uranium and plutonium (MOX) are currently considered as a reference fuel for the new generation of fast breeder reactors such as ASTRID. The key factor determining the performance and safety of a fuel such as MOX is its operational limits in the application environment which are closely related to the material's structure and thermodynamic stability. They are in turn closely related to the ambient (zero pressure) melting point (T m) ; thus, T m is an important engineering parameter. Furthermore, PuO 2 and UO 2 are two endpoints of the phase diagram of MOX; therefore, their ambient T m s are fundamental reference points. However, the current knowledge of the T m of MOX is limited and controversial as several studies available in the literature do not converge on the unique behavior of T m as a function of x. Specifically, some studies produced T m as a monotonically decreasing function of x such that, with T m of UO 2 (x = 0) of 3150 K, T m of PuO 2 (x = 1) is ∼2650 K, while other studies resulted in T m having a local minimum at 0.5 < x < 1 such that T m of PuO 2 is ∼3000 K, so that the difference between the two values of T m is as high as 350 K. In this study, using the ab initio Z method implemented with the Vienna Ab Initio Simulation Package (VASP), we carry out a suite of quantum molecular dynamics simulations to obtain the ambient T m of MOX at several values of x , 0 < x < 1 , including the two end points (x = 0 , x = 1). Our results agree with the behavior of T m of MOX as a function of x having a local minimum at x = 0.7 and T m of PuO 2 of 3050 K. Our study suggests potential ambient density–melting point systematics of MOX which may be useful in subsequent research on MOX such as its thermoelasticity modeling.
- Subjects
FAST reactors; PLUTONIUM; LIQUID metal fast breeder reactors; URANIUM oxides; MELTING points; QUANTUM theory; MOLECULAR dynamics; MELTING
- Publication
Applied Sciences (2076-3417), 2023, Vol 13, Issue 10, p6303
- ISSN
2076-3417
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.3390/app13106303