| About this Abstract |
| Meeting |
2025 TMS Annual Meeting & Exhibition
|
| Symposium
|
Microstructural, Mechanical, and Chemical Behavior of Solid Nuclear Fuel and Fuel-Cladding Interface II
|
| Presentation Title |
Impact of Short-Range Order on Thermodynamic Properties of Point Defects in UMo Fuels |
| Author(s) |
Ziang Yu, Yongfeng Zhang, Benjamin Beeler |
| On-Site Speaker (Planned) |
Ziang Yu |
| Abstract Scope |
U-Mo alloys are crucial as high-density, low-enrichment nuclear fuels in high performance research and test reactors and fast reactors. A significant challenge with U-Mo fuel is its unpredictable and excessive swelling under high-temperature irradiation, primarily due to fission-product gas accumulation in bubbles resulting from point defect formations, diffusions, and subsequent microstructural evolutions and property degradations. However, the thermodynamic and kinetic properties of point defects depend on chemical ordering may not necessarily be random. This study systematically calculates the equilibrium ordering of Mo in U-10Mo using hybrid molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo simulations and identifies non-random, short-range ordering of Mo, which alters the thermodynamic and kinetic properties of point defects. Formation energies, diffusivities, and migration energies are determined as a function of SRO parameters and temperatures. Importantly, our findings reveal that interstitials play a significant role in self-diffusions in thermal conditions, which is abnormal in metals. |
| Proceedings Inclusion? |
Planned: |
| Keywords |
Nuclear Materials, Computational Materials Science & Engineering, Modeling and Simulation |