First principles study on electronic structure, mechanical and thermal properties of actinide nitrides

The long-term hazard of radioactive wastes arising from nuclear energy production is a matter of discussion and public concern. To reduce the radiotoxicy of high-level wastes and use the repository efficienctly partitioning and transmutation (P&T) of minor actinides (MAs: Np, Am, Cm) is an option for the future nuclear fuel cycle. Among the fuel types a nitride fuel is one of the candidates for the Ma-bearing fuels for the transmutation. Thus it is inportant to accumulate the fundamental data of actinide nitrides such as thermal or mechanical properties. However it is difficult to obtain those experimental data for nitride fuels because of the radioisotopic and hydrolytic nature. Therefore we have studied theoretically on the electronic structures, mechanical and thermal properties with first principles calculations.

Reference
柴田，他，"アクチノイド窒化物の弾性特性と相転移の第一原理計算", 日本機械学会第21回計算力学講演会, (2008)