Evaluation of uranium dioxide thermal conductivity using molecular dynamics simulations

It can be extended to larger space, time scale and even real reactor situation with fission product as multi-scale formalism. Uranium dioxide is a fluorite structure with Fm3m space group. Since it is insulator, dominant heat carrier is phonon, rather than electrons. So, using equilibrium molecular dynamics (MD) simulation, we present the appropriate calculation parameters in MD simulation by calculating thermal conductivity and application of it to the thermal conductivity of polycrystal. In this work, we investigate thermal conductivity of uranium dioxide and optimize the parameters related to its process. In this process, called Green Kubo formula, there are two parameters i.e correlation length and sampling interval, which effect on ensemble integration in order to obtain thermal conductivity. Through several comparisons, long correlation length and short sampling interval give better results. Using this strategy, thermal conductivity of poly crystal is obtained and comparison with that of pure crystal is made. Thermal conductivity of poly crystal show lower value that that of pure crystal. In further study, we broaden the study to transport coefficient of radiation damaged structures using molecular dynamics. Although molecular dynamics is tools for treating microscopic scale, most macroscopic issues related to nuclear materials such as voids in fuel materials and weakened mechanical properties by radiation are based on microscopic basis. Thus, research on microscopic scale would be expanded in this field and many hidden mechanism in atomic scales will be revealed via both atomic scale simulations and experiments