Estimations of heat capacities for actinide dioxide: UO2, NpO2, ThO2, and PuO2

Abstract

The evaluation of thermal properties of actinide oxide fuels is a problem of high importance for the development of new generation reactors. In the present study, an expression obtained for n-dimensional Debye functions is used to derive a simple analytical expression for the specific heat capacity of nuclear fuels. To test the validity and reliability of this expression, the analytical expression is applied to UO2, NpO2, ThO2, and PuO2. It is seen that the formula was in agreement with the experimental and theoretical results reported in the literature.