EQUATION OF STATE STUDIES OF FAST BREEDER OXIDE AND CARBIDE FUELS BY DYNAMIC PULSE HEATING TECHNIQUES, AND PREDICTION OF THEIR CRITICAL POINT DATA BY VARIOUS THEORETICAL MODELS.

The various theoretical approaches for the equation of state and critical point data prediction, such as the Principle of Corresponding States, the Law of Rectilinear Diameter, the Significant Structure Theory, the Perturbed Hard Sphere method, the Monte Carlo Technique and Molecular Dynamics were analyzed for their validity for refractory materials such as fast breeder oxide and carbide reactor fuels. The main parameters and phenomena of the various dynamic pulse heating techniques, the exploding wire technique, pulsed electron beam heating, pulsed neutron beam heating, and laser pulse heating, were analyzed. The application of both the theoretical models and the dynamic pulse heating techniques to nuclear fast breeder uranium oxide and carbide fuel materials is demonstrated. Results on UO//2, obtained from the various theoretical models, are discussed.