Using the NGS to Help Determine the Suitability of Thoria for a Next Generation Nuclear Fuel

1. Using the NGS to Help Determine the Suitability of Thoria for a Next Generation Nuclear Fuel • Paul Martin,University of Huddersfield • Investigating the impact of defects in nuclear power fuel rods caused by high energy fission products and initial neutron bombardment. • Increased interest in the use of thorium dioxide for nuclear power rods as it is high in abundance, all of the thorium can be usefully burnt, produces far less radiotoxic waste than other nuclear fuel and does not result in plutoniumproduction. • Used METADISE and PARAPOCS programs for surface calculations to investigate two factors - the stability of thoria with doping levels of uranium, usually found in fuel rods, and the segregation of uranium ions to the stable {111} surface of thoria, both over a range of simulated temperatures • Software used is easily ported to pretty much any architecture, so the jobs are particularly suited to task farming across the NGS. The METADISE jobs were farmed to run many at the same time instead of one after the other resulting in sixty-four 5 minute calculations running in 5 minutes and not 6 hours. • The NGS provides us with easy access to a wide range of compute resources that otherwise would not be available to us, even with considerable investment at a local level, enabling us to get our research done quickly without fuss.