Quantify plutonium-induced solute drag in uranium-plutonium nitride

Quantify the solute-drag contribution from plutonium in uranium-plutonium nitride grain-growth experiments to determine how it affects the intrinsic grain-boundary mobility inferred from the available data.

Background

The mobility extraction uses the only available actinide-nitride grain-growth dataset, which was obtained for uranium-plutonium nitride rather than pure uranium mononitride. Consequently, the inferred mobility may include effects associated with plutonium-containing material rather than representing purely intrinsic uranium-mononitride behavior.

The paper identifies solute drag from plutonium as an unresolved source of uncertainty. Dedicated experiments would be needed to separate plutonium-induced solute drag from curvature-driven grain-boundary migration and thereby refine the mobility parameters.