{"id":15,"date":"2020-04-30T15:13:59","date_gmt":"2020-04-30T19:13:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ne.ncsu.edu\/cnmsg\/?page_id=15"},"modified":"2020-04-30T15:26:45","modified_gmt":"2020-04-30T19:26:45","slug":"research","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/ne.ncsu.edu\/cnmsg\/research\/","title":{"rendered":"Research"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Current Research Projects<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Modeling and characterization of a-uranium to accelerate metallic fuels development<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Funding Source: Idaho National Laboratory – Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Metallic\nfuels such as U-Zr and U-Pu-Zr are being proposed for certain new reactor\ndesigns, such as microreactors and the Versatile Test Reactor (VTR). Idaho\nNational Laboratory (INL) can support metallic fuel development via fuel\nmaterial research and the Bison fuel performance code. The existing metallic\nfuel performance models are empirical and do not match existing data very well.\nTo accelerate materials discovery fuel design timelines and to improve fuel\nperformance models, mechanistic (physics-based) models of fuel swelling,\nfission gas venting and fuel creep are necessary. The alpha-uranium phase\nexists in U-Zr and U-Pu-Zr fuel and significantly contributes to fuel behavior,\nbut many fundamental materials properties and mechanisms of alpha-uranium are\nlacking. This work provides for atomistic modeling to understand the mechanisms\nof irradiation damage in alpha-uranium and the effect of interfaces. These\natomistic modeling simulations will be performed in collaboration with an\nexperimental characterization campaign to construct and inform a mesoscale\nevolution model of defect migration and evolution and the impact on\nmicrostructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Advanced Computational Modeling and Experimental Benchmarking of the Thermophysical Properties of Molten Salt Systems applicable to Molten Salt Reactor Design<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Funding Source: Idaho National Laboratory – Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A\nsignificant knowledge gap exists in the data for the fundamental properties\nrelevant to fuels and coolants for molten salt reactors (MSRs) that needs to be\naddressed in order to expedite the technical readiness level of the MSR design\nconcepts. The US-DOE has identified the need to better understand, predict, and\noptimize the physical properties and thermochemical behavior of molten salts.\nThis work will construct a computational framework for rapid evaluation of\nequilibrium salt properties, validated to existing experiments. This underlying\nframework will provide the ability to systematically obtain the equilibrium\nvolume, energy, heat capacity and thermal expansion of salts as a function of\ncomposition and temperature in a consistent and coherent manner. This work will\nleverage previous computational studies on molten salt systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Subsequently,\nthis framework will be utilized and extended to include investigations of\nextrinsic species within salts, as well as unique compositional salt\nconstructions that are beyond the current experimental knowledge. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Radiation Enhanced Diffusion of U, Mo and Xe in U-Mo alloys for research reactor applications<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Funding Source: U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Material Management and Minimization, National Nuclear Security Administration<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A monolithic UMo fuel with low enriched fuel is proposed\nin place of the high enrichment UMo fuels used in research reactors. Qualification\nof this new type of fuel requires the fuel to maintain stable and predictable\nbehavior throughout its lifetime in-reactor. Mechanistic fuel models are being\ndeveloped that both correspond to existing experimental data on fuel swelling\nand can be applied to irradiation conditions beyond the experimental scope. In\norder to develop such mechanistic models, accurate fuel property data is\nrequired and must be obtained from either experiments or lower length scale\nmodeling methodologies. One such parameter of critical importance is the\nspecies diffusion in UMo, with special emphasis on fission gas diffusion. There\nexists experimental data on high temperature, intrinsic diffusion of U and Mo.\nThe Microstructural Modeling Working Group formed under the USHPRR program\natomistically calculated the radiation driven diffusion coefficients. However,\nno such data on radiation enhanced diffusion in UMo alloys exists. In support\nof the USHPRR program, this subcontract supports the calculation of radiation\nenhanced diffusion of U, Mo and Xe in UMo fuels for application to fission gas swelling\nmechanistic models. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Current Research Projects Modeling and characterization of a-uranium to accelerate metallic fuels development Funding Source: Idaho National Laboratory – Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD)…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":72,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-landing.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-15","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ne.ncsu.edu\/cnmsg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/15","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ne.ncsu.edu\/cnmsg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ne.ncsu.edu\/cnmsg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ne.ncsu.edu\/cnmsg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/72"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ne.ncsu.edu\/cnmsg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/ne.ncsu.edu\/cnmsg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/15\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35,"href":"https:\/\/ne.ncsu.edu\/cnmsg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/15\/revisions\/35"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ne.ncsu.edu\/cnmsg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}