Oak Ridge Today

Volkswagen, UT, ORNL announce collaboration, innovation hub

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Volkswagen Group America Innovation North University Tennessee Research Park
Volkswagen Group of America will lease space in the Innovation North building on the UT Research Park campus. (Photo courtesy University of Tennessee)

Volkswagen Group of America, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the University of Tennessee on Friday announced a collaboration to create Volkswagen’s first innovation hub in North America at the UT Research Park at Cherokee Farm.

“Working with the University of Tennessee and Oak Ridge National Laboratory is a great opportunity to continue growing Volkswagen’s engineering footprint in the North American region,” said Wolfgang Demmelbauer-Ebner, executive vice president and chief engineering officer for Volkswagen’s North American region. “This hub, along with other research institutions here, is an integral part of Volkswagen’s global research and development efforts and can also directly contribute to vehicles in North America.”

The collaboration involves research opportunities for doctoral students and space in the Innovation North building at the UT Research Park at Cherokee Farm in Knoxville, a press release said. Initial work will focus on developing lighter vehicle components made from composite materials and the electrification of vehicles.

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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…]