IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v5y2014i1d10.1038_ncomms5551.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Anisotropic thermal conductivity in uranium dioxide

Author

Listed:
  • K. Gofryk

    (Materials Technology-Metallurgy, Los Alamos National Laboratory
    Present address: Fuel Modeling and Simulation Department, Idaho National Laboratory, P.O. Box 1625, Idaho Falls, Idaho 83415, USA)

  • S. Du

    (Physics and Chemistry of Materials, Los Alamos National Laboratory
    Present address: Division of Functional Materials and Nanodevices, Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo, Zhejiang 315201, China)

  • C. R. Stanek

    (Materials Science in Radiation & Dynamical Extremes, Los Alamos National Laboratory)

  • J. C. Lashley

    (Materials Technology-Metallurgy, Los Alamos National Laboratory)

  • X. -Y. Liu

    (Materials Science in Radiation & Dynamical Extremes, Los Alamos National Laboratory)

  • R. K. Schulze

    (Materials Technology-Metallurgy, Los Alamos National Laboratory)

  • J. L. Smith

    (Materials Technology-Metallurgy, Los Alamos National Laboratory)

  • D. J. Safarik

    (Materials Technology-Metallurgy, Los Alamos National Laboratory)

  • D. D. Byler

    (Materials Science in Radiation & Dynamical Extremes, Los Alamos National Laboratory)

  • K. J. McClellan

    (Materials Science in Radiation & Dynamical Extremes, Los Alamos National Laboratory)

  • B. P. Uberuaga

    (Materials Science in Radiation & Dynamical Extremes, Los Alamos National Laboratory)

  • B. L. Scott

    (Los Alamos National Laboratory)

  • D. A. Andersson

    (Materials Science in Radiation & Dynamical Extremes, Los Alamos National Laboratory)

Abstract

The thermal conductivity of uranium dioxide has been studied for over half a century, as uranium dioxide is the fuel used in a majority of operating nuclear reactors and thermal conductivity controls the conversion of heat produced by fission events to electricity. Because uranium dioxide is a cubic compound and thermal conductivity is a second-rank tensor, it has always been assumed to be isotropic. We report thermal conductivity measurements on oriented uranium dioxide single crystals that show anisotropy from 4 K to above 300 K. Our results indicate that phonon-spin scattering is important for understanding the general thermal conductivity behaviour, and also explains the anisotropy by coupling to the applied temperature gradient and breaking cubic symmetry.

Suggested Citation

  • K. Gofryk & S. Du & C. R. Stanek & J. C. Lashley & X. -Y. Liu & R. K. Schulze & J. L. Smith & D. J. Safarik & D. D. Byler & K. J. McClellan & B. P. Uberuaga & B. L. Scott & D. A. Andersson, 2014. "Anisotropic thermal conductivity in uranium dioxide," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 5(1), pages 1-7, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:5:y:2014:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms5551
    DOI: 10.1038/ncomms5551
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms5551
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/ncomms5551?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:5:y:2014:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms5551. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.