| About this Abstract |
| Meeting |
2023 TMS Annual Meeting & Exhibition
|
| Symposium
|
Ceramic Materials for Nuclear Energy Research and Applications
|
| Presentation Title |
Phase Equilibria and Thermodynamics of Tri-carbide Fuels for Nuclear Thermal Propulsion |
| Author(s) |
Ronald Booth, Juliano Schrone Pinto, Erofili Kardoulaki, Ken Mcclellan, Jhonathan Rosales, Theodore Besmann |
| On-Site Speaker (Planned) |
Ronald Booth |
| Abstract Scope |
Nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) is an exceptional alternative to chemical propulsion for space travel due to its increased power density providing twice the specific impulse (the ratio of thrust to propellent mass flow rate) of chemical propulsion. Uranium monocarbide is the nuclear material of most interest for NTP due to its high thermal conductivity and high uranium atom density. However, NTP requires a nuclear reactor with high temperature stability to over 2700oC, where UC has a low melting point of below that at 2420oC. To address this issue there is interest in using a tri-carbide nuclear fuel of UC-ZrC-TaC. In the current work this system has been thermodynamically modelled to predict phase equilibria and behavior to determine temperature stability over 2700oC. |
| Proceedings Inclusion? |
Planned: |
| Keywords |
Nuclear Materials, Phase Transformations, Modeling and Simulation |