We are very pleased to announce the publication our new paper looking at how doping uranium dioxide fuel with gadolinium affects its thermal conductivity. Doping is a useful tool for optimising the performance of fuel, so understanding how it affects thermo-physical properties is important for the safe and reliable operation of nuclear reactors.

Bangor’s own Simon Middleburgh, Michael Rushton and visiting Research Fellow Mattias Puide contributed to the work in collaboration with partners at ANSTO, Westinghouse Electric Sweden, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Imperial College London. It’s well worth a read.

The paper presents modelling work using non-equilibrium molecular dynamics to predict the thermal conductivity of Gd doped fuel. A number of defect configurations were simulated and the results compared against models in commonly used fuel-performance codes. The simulations made use of the Cooper-Rushton-Grimes potential model which was co-developed by Michael Rushton who works in Bangor’s nuclear materials group.