RT info:eu-repo/semantics/article T1 First principles study of liquid uranium at temperatures up to 2050 K A1 González del Río, Beatriz A1 González Tesedo, Luis Enrique A1 González Fernández, David José K1 Liquid uranium K1 22 Física AB Uranium compounds are used as fissile materials in nuclear reactors. In present day reactors the most used nuclear fuel is uranium dioxide, but in generation-IV reactors other compounds are also being considered, such as uranium carbide and uranium mononitride. Upon possible accidents where the coolant would not circulate or be lost the core of the reactor would reach very high temperatures, and therefore it is essential to understand the behaviour of the nuclear fuel under such conditions for proper risk assessment. We consider here molten metallic uranium at several temperatures ranging from 1455 to 2050 K. Even though metallic uranium is not a candidate for nuclear fuel it could nevertheless be produced due to the thermochemical instability of uranium nitride at high temperatures. We use first principles techniques to analyse the behaviour of this system and obtain basic structural and dynamic properties, as well as some thermodynamic and transport properties, including atomic diffusion and viscosity. PB IOP Publishing SN 0953-8984 YR 2020 FD 2020 LK http://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/42613 UL http://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/42613 LA eng NO Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter, 2020, Volume 32, Number 30 NO Producción Científica DS UVaDOC RD 24-abr-2024