2023 article
Ab Initio Evaluation of Uranium Carbide S(alpha, beta) and Thermal Neutron Cross Sections
15TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON NUCLEAR DATA FOR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, ND2022, Vol. 284.
open access via www.epj-conferences.org (publisher PDF)
UN Sustainable Development Goal Categories
7. Affordable and Clean Energy
(Web of Science; OpenAlex)
Source: Web Of Science
Added: September 11, 2023
Uranium Carbide (UC) is a nuclear fuel material which offers better neutron economy and lower fuel-cycle costs compared to conventional mixed-oxide fuels. UC’s lattice binding and dynamical properties impact thermal neutron scattering and low temperature epithermal resonance absorption. The Thermal Scattering Law (TSL) describes the scattering system available energy and momentum transfer states. There is no TSL evaluation for UC in the ENDF/B-VIII.0 database; herein,ab-initiolattice dynamics (AILD) techniques are invoked to calculate the phonon spectrum for UC using spin-orbit-coupling density functional theory (DFT). The TSLs, inelastic and elastic thermal scattering cross sections for Uranium238 and Carbon12 in UC, respectively, are calculated inFLASSHfor use in higher fidelity reactor design calculations.