As part of the Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors, EPRI is participating in the creation of a high-performance “virtual reactor” that will advance nuclear reactor design and engineering.

The Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors, one of three Energy Innovation Hubs sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, will apply modeling and simulation technologies to make significant advances in nuclear reactor design and engineering. The team, led by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, includes nine other institutions: EPRI, Idaho National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, North Carolina State University, Sandia National Laboratories, Tennessee Valley Authority, University of Michigan, and Westinghouse Electric Company. EPRI has the lead in ensuring industry needs and constraints are properly factored into the modeling efforts.

The consortium’s mission is to build upon and enhance existing modeling and simulation capabilities to create a user environment that allows engineers to utilize high-performance computing capability to simulate a currently operating reactor. The resulting simulation will act as a “virtual reactor,” benchmarked and validated by a range of data.

Initially focused on pressurized water reactors, the consortium will use the virtual reactor to simulate the performance of several fuel designs relative to fuel failure mechanisms of concern and to simulate reactor response to certain transients and accidents. These “challenge problems” reflect actual plant conditions associated with a particular fuel failure mode. Early challenge problems will address grid-to-rod fretting, crud and corrosion, and pellet-cladding interaction. Future efforts will address fuel assembly distortion, incomplete rod insertion, and fuel behavior under postulated accidents.

The capabilities developed through the virtual reactor will enable faster, less costly, and more reliable fuel designs, and will support additional power uprates, higher burnup, and implementation of advanced fuel designs. Research will also assess the effects of fuel design and operation on plant life extension, including integrity of the reactor and reactor internals. To ensure the virtual reactor remains relevant to industry needs, EPRI will lead an industry council with representatives from outside of the immediate team.

The Department of Energy anticipates $122 million in funding to CASL over a five-year period, including $22 million for fiscal year 2010 and $25 million in each of the next four years. EPRI anticipates receiving approximately $1 million per year for personnel time and other direct expenses. EPRI is contributing intellectual property in the form of models, software and data from the Fuel Reliability and Risk & Safety Management programs.

For more information, contact Steve Hess at 484.753.3677 or shess@epri.com.