| Abstract Scope |
Recent advances in fabrication of metal hydrides and high-temperature solid solution fuels have elevated these materials as enabling technologies for space reactors. While typical reactor materials modeling focuses on thermo-mechanical behavior to capture the in-pile performance of components such as the fuel and structural materials, ZrH, YH, and (U,Zr)C exhibit unique surface reactions that require a refocusing on the thermo-chemistry aspects of the materials. In order to capture the evolving behavior of these materials, a new code, SWIFT, is under development at Los Alamos National Laboratory to track the non-linearity between surface reaction, gas pressure evolution, bulk diffusion, permeabilities, and material stoichiometry. This code has been applied to range of problems, from simple systems, such as encapsulated hydrides, to complex transients, such as subchannel flow. Ultimately, tools such as SWIFT are extremely useful in the design, operation, and safety of reactors with these new materials. |