Molecular dynamics simulation of collective behaviour of Xe in UO2

This paper performs atomic simulations of the nucleationand growth of Xe bubble in UO$_{2}$ at 1600~K. The bubble growth wassimulated up to the bubble containing 50 Xe atoms. The Xe atoms wereadded directly to the bubble one by one, followed by a relaxation ofthe system for several picoseconds. The simulations estimated thebubble pressure and radius at different Xe concentrations. Theresults indicate that the bubble pressure drops with the increasingXe/U and bubble size at low Xe concentration, while the pressurewill increase with the Xe/U ratio at high Xe concentration. Theswelling of the system associated with the bubble growth was alsoobtained. Finally, the recovery of the damaged structure wasinvestigated.