Abstract
The elemental and chemical composition of nuclear fuel
pellets are key factors influencing the material
properties of the pellets. The oxidation state of the
fuel is one of the most important chemical properties
influencing the material properties of the fuel, and it
can only be determined with the knowledge of the chemical
composition. A measure of the oxidation state is the
oxygen chemical potential of the fuel. It can be buffered
by redox pairs, such as the well-known Mo/MoO2 pair.
In this work, the elemental composition of the fuel is
obtained from a burnup calculation and the temperature
and pressure calculated with a fuel performance code. An
estimate of the oxygen potential of fuel is calculated
with Gibbs energy minimization. The results are compared
against experimental data from the literature. The
significance of the UMoO6 compound and its buffering
effect on the oxygen potential is emphasized.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Pages (from-to) | 101-110 |
Journal | Journal of Nuclear Materials |
Volume | 481 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2016 |
MoE publication type | A1 Journal article-refereed |
Keywords
- thermochemical modeling
- nuclear fuel
- oxygen potential
- buffering