Thermal conductivity of U-Mo/Al dispersion fuel: effects of particle shape and size, stereography, and heat generation

Abstract

This paper describes the effects of particle sphericity, interfacial thermal resistance, stereography, and heat generation on the thermal conductivity of U-Mo/Al dispersion fuel. The ABAQUS finite element method (FEM) tool was used to calculate the effective thermal conductivity of U-Mo/Al dispersion fuel by implementing fuel particles. For U-Mo/Al, the particle sphericity effect was insignificant. However, if the effect of the interfacial thermal resistance between the fuel particles and Al matrix was considered, the thermal conductivity of U-Mo/Al was increased as the particle size increases. To examine the effect of stereography, we compared the two-dimensional modeling and three-dimensional modeling. The results showed that the two-dimensional modeling predicted lower than the three-dimensional modeling. We also examined the effect of the presence of heat sources in the fuel particles and found a decrease in thermal conductivity of U-Mo/Al from that of the typical homogeneous heat generation modeling. ⓒ 2015 Atomic Energy Society of Japan. All rights reserved