A physical model for evaluating uranium nitride specific heat

Nitride fuel is one of perspective materials for the nuclear industry. But unlike the oxide and carbide uranium and mixed uranium–plutonium fuel, the nitride fuel is less studied. The present article is devoted to the development of a model for calculating UN specific heat on the basis of phonon spectrum data within the solid state theory.

► The uranium nitride specific heat is theoretically calculated.
► We took into account anharmonic correction to the specific heat at constant volume.
► Debye and Einstein temperatures for UN are established.
► The knowledge of phonons spectrum allows describing UN thermal properties.