Determination of thermal properties pure ThO2 using classical molecular dynamics simulations

Abstract

This paper calculates lattice thermal expansion (LTE), thermal conductivity (TC) and melting temperature (MT) of ThO2 using classical molecular dynamic simulations. In this study we consider two set of interatomic potential consisting of Coulomb-Buckingham (Buck) and Coulomb-Buckingham-Morse-Many body (BMM) potential form. The MD calculated LTE of 10.29 × 10-6 and 10.61 × 10-6 K-1 using BMM and Buck potential, respectively, is slightly higher than the experimentally determined values (9.54 - 9.86 × 10-6 K-1). The MD calculated TC values in the high temperature range (600 to 1200 K) accords very well with the experimental measurements and at the low temperature range (300-500 K) our results are slightly different from experimental results as our presumption that the dominant mechanism for phonon scattering is the Umklapp process. The MD calculated MT of ThO2 using Buck and BMM potential model is 3662.5±12.5 K and 3812.5±12.5 K, respectively, and these values are in reasonable agreement with previous experimental values. © 2016 Author(s).