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Title: The Virtual Environment for Reactor Applications (VERA): Design and architecture

Abstract

VERA, the Virtual Environment for Reactor Applications, is the system of physics capabilities being developed and deployed by the Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors (CASL), the first DOE Hub, which was established in July 2010 for the modeling and simulation of commercial nuclear reactors. VERA consists of integrating and interfacing software together with a suite of physics components adapted and/or refactored to simulate relevant physical phenomena in a coupled manner. VERA also includes the software development environment and computational infrastructure needed for these components to be effectively used. We describe the architecture of VERA from both a software and a numerical perspective, along with the goals and constraints that drove the major design decisions and their implications. As a result, we explain why VERA is an environment rather than a framework or toolkit, why these distinctions are relevant (particularly for coupled physics applications), and provide an overview of results that demonstrate the application of VERA tools for a variety of challenging problems within the nuclear industry.

Authors:
ORCiD logo [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [2];  [2]; ORCiD logo [2]
+ Show Author Affiliations
  1. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
  2. Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF); Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Consortium for Advanced Simulation of LWRs (CASL)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC); USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
OSTI Identifier:
1326477
Alternate Identifier(s):
OSTI ID: 1460048
Grant/Contract Number:  
AC05-00OR22725; AC04-94AL85000
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Journal of Computational Physics
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 326; Journal Issue: C; Journal ID: ISSN 0021-9991
Publisher:
Elsevier
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS; CASL; nuclear energy; HPC; VERA; coupled physics; multiphysics; simulation; software; nuclear reactor; modeling; core simulator; neutronics; fluid flow; thermal-hydraulics

Citation Formats

Turner, John A., Clarno, Kevin, Sieger, Matt, Bartlett, Roscoe, Collins, Benjamin, Pawlowski, Roger, Schmidt, Rodney, and Summers, Randall. The Virtual Environment for Reactor Applications (VERA): Design and architecture. United States: N. p., 2016. Web. doi:10.1016/j.jcp.2016.09.003.
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Turner, John A., Clarno, Kevin, Sieger, Matt, Bartlett, Roscoe, Collins, Benjamin, Pawlowski, Roger, Schmidt, Rodney, & Summers, Randall. The Virtual Environment for Reactor Applications (VERA): Design and architecture. United States. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcp.2016.09.003
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Turner, John A., Clarno, Kevin, Sieger, Matt, Bartlett, Roscoe, Collins, Benjamin, Pawlowski, Roger, Schmidt, Rodney, and Summers, Randall. Thu . "The Virtual Environment for Reactor Applications (VERA): Design and architecture". United States. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcp.2016.09.003. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1326477.
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@article{osti_1326477,
title = {The Virtual Environment for Reactor Applications (VERA): Design and architecture},
author = {Turner, John A. and Clarno, Kevin and Sieger, Matt and Bartlett, Roscoe and Collins, Benjamin and Pawlowski, Roger and Schmidt, Rodney and Summers, Randall},
abstractNote = {VERA, the Virtual Environment for Reactor Applications, is the system of physics capabilities being developed and deployed by the Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors (CASL), the first DOE Hub, which was established in July 2010 for the modeling and simulation of commercial nuclear reactors. VERA consists of integrating and interfacing software together with a suite of physics components adapted and/or refactored to simulate relevant physical phenomena in a coupled manner. VERA also includes the software development environment and computational infrastructure needed for these components to be effectively used. We describe the architecture of VERA from both a software and a numerical perspective, along with the goals and constraints that drove the major design decisions and their implications. As a result, we explain why VERA is an environment rather than a framework or toolkit, why these distinctions are relevant (particularly for coupled physics applications), and provide an overview of results that demonstrate the application of VERA tools for a variety of challenging problems within the nuclear industry.},
doi = {10.1016/j.jcp.2016.09.003},
journal = {Journal of Computational Physics},
number = C,
volume = 326,
place = {United States},
year = {Thu Sep 08 00:00:00 EDT 2016},
month = {Thu Sep 08 00:00:00 EDT 2016}
}
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Publisher's Version of Record
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcp.2016.09.003
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    Multi-physics coupling simulation in virtual reactors
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