About this Abstract |
| Meeting |
2026 TMS Annual Meeting & Exhibition
|
| Symposium
|
Metallic Fuels - Design, Fabrication, and Characterization
|
| Presentation Title |
Investigating Phonon Transport in Uranium Nitride Using Neutron scattering |
| Author(s) |
Shaofei Wang, Adam Aczel, Barry Winn, Chris A Marianetti, Michael E. Manley |
| On-Site Speaker (Planned) |
Shaofei Wang |
| Abstract Scope |
Uranium nitride (UN) has a high thermal conductivity (13.92 W/m·K at 300 K), making it a promising candidate fuel for future fast neutron reactors. Understanding its thermal transport behavior is essential for improving reactor performance and safety. From 300 K to 2000 K, thermal conductivity in UN is predominantly governed by lattice vibrations. Therefore, characterizing the phonons is critical to understanding its thermal conductivity. To gain direct insight into the microscopic mechanisms of heat transport in UN, we performed inelastic neutron scattering to measure phonon energies, group velocities, and lifetimes. These results offer direct insight into the microscopic mechanisms of heat conduction and provide a benchmark for testing modern first-principles models, especially for materials with strong 5f-electron correlations.
This neutron work was supported by the U.S.DOE Office of Science, EFRC, Center for Thermal Energy Transport under Irradiation, and used resources at SNS and HFIR. |
| Proceedings Inclusion? |
Planned: |
| Keywords |
Nuclear Materials, Characterization, High-Temperature Materials |