scholarly journals Thermophysical Properties of Mixtures of Thorium and Uranium Nitride

JOM ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. S. Parker ◽  
S. Newman ◽  
A. J. Fallgren ◽  
J. T. White

AbstractThe miscibility, lattice parameter, and thermophysical properties of (Th0.2U0.8)N and (Th0.5U0.5)N have been investigated. It is shown that additions of thorium nitride (ThN) to uranium nitride (UN) increases the thermophysical performance of the mixed nitride fuel form in comparison to reference UN. In the more dilute limit, additions of ThN serve as a burnable neutronic poison and reduces the change in keff over the lifecycle of the fuel. At higher concentrations, additions of ThN serve as a significant fertile source of 233U. Where appropriate, comparisons to previous work on UN + PuN mixtures are made, as this is a comparable fuel form for potential fast reactor concepts, and a suitable point of contrast in the possible design space afforded by mixed (ThxU1 − x)N fuel forms. The data from this work are the input parameters for finite element modeling of the temperature distribution in a compact reactor. The results of modeling and simulation of this core design are shown for the case of steady-state operation and during double, adjacent heat pipe failure.

Author(s):  
Humberto Alves da Silveira Monteiro ◽  
Guilherme Garcia Botelho ◽  
Roque Luiz da Silva Pitangueira ◽  
Rodrigo Peixoto ◽  
FELICIO BARROS

1998 ◽  
Vol 40 (8A) ◽  
pp. A251-A268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xavier Litaudon

1994 ◽  
Vol 61 (4) ◽  
pp. 919-922 ◽  
Author(s):  
Taein Yeo ◽  
J. R. Barber

When heat is conducted across an interface between two dissimilar materials, theimoelastic distortion affects the contact pressure distribution. The existence of a pressure-sensitive thermal contact resistance at the interface can cause such systems to be unstable in the steady-state. Stability analysis for thermoelastic contact has been conducted by linear perturbation methods for one-dimensional and simple two-dimensional geometries, but analytical solutions become very complicated for finite geometries. A method is therefore proposed in which the finite element method is used to reduce the stability problem to an eigenvalue problem. The linearity of the underlying perturbation problem enables us to conclude that solutions can be obtained in separated-variable form with exponential variation in time. This factor can therefore be removed from the governing equations and the finite element method is used to obtain a time-independent set of homogeneous equations in which the exponential growth rate appears as a linear parameter. We therefore obtain a linear eigenvalue problem and stability of the system requires that all the resulting eigenvalues should have negative real part. The method is discussed in application to the simple one-dimensional system of two contacting rods. The results show good agreement with previous analytical investigations and give additional information about the migration of eigenvalues in the complex plane as the steady-state heat flux is varied.


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