| About this Abstract |
| Meeting |
MS&T21: Materials Science & Technology
|
| Symposium
|
Phonon Properties of Materials: Modeling and Experimentation
|
| Presentation Title |
Experimental and Computational Thermal Conductivity Reduction in Single Crystal Thorium Dioxide from Lattice Defects |
| Author(s) |
Cody A. Dennett, Marat Khafizov, Anter El-Azab, David H. Hurley |
| On-Site Speaker (Planned) |
Cody A. Dennett |
| Abstract Scope |
Actinide and lanthanide fluorite oxides form an important class of ceramic energy materials with applications ranging from nuclear fuels to solid oxide fuel cells. Potential application environments for ThO<sub>2</sub> in particular include high radiation fields which directly generate lattice defects. Such defects drastically influence phonon thermal transport, a controlling safety and performance property. Here, we use a combination of ion beam irradiation and spatial domain thermoreflectance measurements to generate a defected region in single crystal ThO<sub>2</sub> specimens in a variety of conditions and measure the resulting thermal conductivity from 77-300K. In parallel, defect evolution models are used with the linearized Boltzmann transport equation (BTE) and computed defect scattering cross sections to directly return lattice thermal conductivity over the same temperature range. The agreement shown between modeling and experiment is the first step towards a predictive thermal transport capability in fluorite oxides across a wide range of environmental conditions. |