Oak Ridge Today

ORNL consortium working on nuclear reactors names director

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David Kropaczek directs the Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors, U.S. a Department of Energy Innovation Hub headquartered at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. (Photo by ORNL)

David Kropaczek directs the Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors, U.S. a Department of Energy Innovation Hub headquartered at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. (Photo by ORNL)

 

A consortium that is based at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and works on next-generation commercial nuclear reactors has named a director.

David J. Kropaczek will lead the Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors, which is based at ORNL, a U.S. Department of Energy laboratory.

CASL, which launched in 2010 as DOE’s first Energy Innovation Hub, has brought together the nation’s supercomputing facilities and leading nuclear experts and institutions to pursue an aggressive 10-year mission—to predict the performance of existing and next-generation commercial nuclear reactors through comprehensive, science-based modeling, and simulation, a press release said. [Read more…]

Senate bill also rejects Trump’s science cut, increases funding instead

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Energy Secretary Rick Perry, left, talks to reporters after touring Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Manufacturing Demonstration Facility on Hardin Valley Road on Monday, May 22, 2017. Also pictured is U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander, center, a Tennessee Republican, and ORNL Director Thom Mason. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander, center, a Tennessee Republican, is pictured above with Energy Secretary Rick Perry, left, at Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Manufacturing Demonstration Facility in Hardin Valley on Monday, May 22, 2017. Also pictured is former ORNL Director Thom Mason. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

 

An appropriations bill approved by a Senate subcommittee on Tuesday rejects the Trump administration’s proposal to cut $919 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science in the fiscal year that starts October 1.

Instead of cutting, the Senate bill would actually increase funding for the Office of Science, boosting it to $5.55 billion in fiscal year 2018. That would be again a record funding level in a regular appropriations bill, according to U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican who often advocates for the federal sites in Oak Ridge and chairs the Senate subcommittee.

Like the Senate this week, the House Appropriations Committee last week also rejected President Donald Trump’s request to cut DOE’s Office of Science.

Unlike the Senate bill, though, the House bill would keep funding flat at $5.39 billion, the same as in the current fiscal year. That level of funding was also a record in a regular appropriations bill, Alexander said in May.

The Office of Science is the nation’s largest supporter of research in the physical sciences.

The president’s budget request, submitted to Congress on May 23, would cut Office of Science funding by about 17 percent, dropping it to $4.47 billion.

Keeping Office of Science funding flat, or even increasing it, could be important to several of the federal sites in Oak Ridge. Oak Ridge National Laboratory is an Office of Science lab, and the Office of Scientific and Technical Information, or OSTI, is an Office of Science unit. [Read more…]

ORNL’s CASL, Westinghouse simulate neutron behavior in nuclear reactor core

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AP1000 Pressurized Water Reactor

CASL is developing and applying new modeling and simulation technology (Virtual Environment for Reactor Applications Core Simulator or VERA-CS) to resolve and predict the detailed neutron distribution of the power-generation reactor core residing in reactor vessels. (Image courtesy of Westinghouse)

Test run signals emergence of the next generation in nuclear power reactor analysis tools

Scientists and engineers developing more accurate approaches to analyzing nuclear power reactors have successfully tested a new suite of computer codes that closely model “neutronics”—the behavior of neutrons in a reactor core.

Technical staff at Westinghouse Electric Company LLC, supported by the research team at the Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors, or CASL, used the Virtual Environment for Reactor Applications core simulator (VERA-CS) to analyze its AP1000 advanced pressurized water reactor. The testing focused on modeling the startup conditions of the AP1000 plant design. [Read more…]

CASL milestone validates reactor model using TVA data

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CASL VERA Simulation

This CASL visualization shows the thermal distribution of neutrons in Watts Bar Unit 1 Cycle 1 reactor core at initial criticality, as calculated by the VERA program. (Image courtesy Oak Ridge National Laboratory)

The Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors this week announced that its scientists have successfully completed the first full-scale simulation of an operating nuclear reactor.

Headquartered at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, CASL is modeling nuclear reactors on supercomputers to help researchers better understand reactor performance with much higher reliability than previously available methods, with the goal of ultimately increasing power output, extending reactor life, and reducing waste.

Simulation results from the Virtual Environment for Reactor Applications (VERA) program, which was developed by CASL, were compared with actual data provided by the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Watts Bar Nuclear Plant in Tennessee, which confirmed its accuracy. [Read more…]