Modeling and simulation challenges pursued by the Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors (CASL)

Journal Article · Sun May 15 00:00:00 EDT 2016 · Journal of Computational Physics

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/J.JCP.2016.02.043· OSTI ID:22572300

Turinsky, Paul J., E-mail: [e-mail] ^[1]; Kothe, Douglas B., E-mail: [e-mail] ^[2]

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1. North Carolina State University, PO Box 7926, Raleigh, NC 27695-7926 (United States)
2. Oak Ridge National Laboratory, PO Box 2008, Oak Ridge, TN 37831-6164 (United States)

The Consortium for the Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors (CASL), the first Energy Innovation Hub of the Department of Energy, was established in 2010 with the goal of providing modeling and simulation (M&S) capabilities that support and accelerate the improvement of nuclear energy's economic competitiveness and the reduction of spent nuclear fuel volume per unit energy, and all while assuring nuclear safety. To accomplish this requires advances in M&S capabilities in radiation transport, thermal-hydraulics, fuel performance and corrosion chemistry. To focus CASL's R&D, industry challenge problems have been defined, which equate with long standing issues of the nuclear power industry that M&S can assist in addressing. To date CASL has developed a multi-physics “core simulator” based upon pin-resolved radiation transport and subchannel (within fuel assembly) thermal-hydraulics, capitalizing on the capabilities of high performance computing. CASL's fuel performance M&S capability can also be optionally integrated into the core simulator, yielding a coupled multi-physics capability with untapped predictive potential. Material models have been developed to enhance predictive capabilities of fuel clad creep and growth, along with deeper understanding of zirconium alloy clad oxidation and hydrogen pickup. Understanding of corrosion chemistry (e.g., CRUD formation) has evolved at all scales: micro, meso and macro. CFD R&D has focused on improvement in closure models for subcooled boiling and bubbly flow, and the formulation of robust numerical solution algorithms. For multiphysics integration, several iterative acceleration methods have been assessed, illuminating areas where further research is needed. Finally, uncertainty quantification and data assimilation techniques, based upon sampling approaches, have been made more feasible for practicing nuclear engineers via R&D on dimensional reduction and biased sampling. Industry adoption of CASL's evolving M&S capabilities, which is in progress, will assist in addressing long-standing and future operational and safety challenges of the nuclear industry. - Highlights: • Complexity of physics based modeling of light water reactor cores being addressed. • Capability developed to help address problems that have challenged the nuclear power industry. • Simulation capabilities that take advantage of high performance computing developed.

• OSTI ID: 22572300
• Journal Information: Journal of Computational Physics, Vol. 313; Other Information: Copyright (c) 2016 Elsevier Science B.V., Amsterdam, The Netherlands, All rights reserved.; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0021-9991
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
ALGORITHMS
CORROSION
FUEL ASSEMBLIES
NUCLEAR INDUSTRY
NUMERICAL SOLUTION
PERFORMANCE
RADIATION TRANSPORT
REACTOR CORES
SIMULATION
SIMULATORS
SPENT FUELS
SUBCOOLED BOILING
THERMAL HYDRAULICS
WATER COOLED REACTORS
WATER MODERATED REACTORS
ZIRCONIUM ALLOYS