An experimentally validated mesoscale model for the effective thermal conductivity of U-Zr fuels

An experimentally validated mesoscale model was developed to simulate the effective thermal conductivity (ETC) of metallic U and U–Zr nuclear fuels. The effects of microstructure, temperature, composition, and interfacial thermal resistance (ITR) were investigated. Companion experiments were conduct...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of nuclear materials Vol. 574
Main Authors Badry, Fergany, Singh, Monika, Ortega, Luis H., Mcdeavitt, Sean M., Ahmed, Karim
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States Elsevier 15.12.2022
Subjects
Effective thermal conductivity
Interfacial thermal resistance
Mesoscale modeling
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS
U-Zr fuels
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Summary:An experimentally validated mesoscale model was developed to simulate the effective thermal conductivity (ETC) of metallic U and U–Zr nuclear fuels. The effects of microstructure, temperature, composition, and interfacial thermal resistance (ITR) were investigated. Companion experiments were conducted to validate the model. The numerical simulations clearly demonstrate that accounting for the interface (Kapitza) thermal resistance and Zr precipitation is necessary to improve the model predictions. The dependence of the effective Kapitza resistance of depleted-U and U-10Zr on temperature was determined. Finally, for both materials, the largest difference between the model calculations and the experimental data was about 4.5%, which is within the precision of the experimental measurements.
Bibliography:NE0008764; AC07-05ID14517
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES). Scientific User Facilities (SUF)
USDOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE)
ISSN:0022-3115